


On the Subject of Nests and Happiness

by Nonesane



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Book/TV Series Mashup, Clueless immortals doing their best, Footnotes, M/M, Metaphysical Sex, Mutual Pining, Nesting, Not even IKEA instructions, Slow Burn, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), There is no user manual to nesting, Wing Kink, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-10-05 05:15:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20483456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonesane/pseuds/Nonesane
Summary: Whether it's a sign of God's sense of humor or a punishment, nesting turns out to be A Thing for demons. And...maybe angels too?





	1. The Many Nests of the Demon Crowley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A summary of every nest Crowley ever built, to explain the one he's still working on.

The first nest Crowley built took form around 42 AD, in Rome. He and Aziraphale had been stationed in the city for a full year at that point, running into each other every other week as their temptations and blessings led them from one side of it and back again. There had been a number of shared dinners, late night walks and cups of fine wine. More than ever there had been before, if not as frequent as they one day would become.  
  
"Paying people to cook for you is such a wonderful invention," Aziraphale had said in an unguarded moment, "I'm so glad it caught on."  
  
It were those moments, those glimpses of opinions and free will and preferences, that had snared Crowley. From their first encounter in the Garden and through the following millennia, Aziraphale's tantalisingly unangelic qualities drew Crowley in like flies to honey.  
  
His angelic qualities were alluring as well, if Crowley were to be honest with himself, but Crowley rarely were. At least not back then.  
  
"I can't wrap my head around this slavery business," Aziraphale had said another time as they'd ended up in the audience at the same fighting pit, neither of them enjoying the show. "Did your people come up with it?"  
  
"No, this one's all on the humans," Crowley had answered. He'd long ago come to terms with the fact that humans had demons beat in the field of creative evil; beat by miles, if not continents. "I'm sure they'll get over it," he'd lied, because Aziraphale had looked genuinely distressed and even back then Crowley couldn't take Aziraphale's sadness for long, much less genuine grief. "You know what? Why don't you take this one."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Sure, why not," Crowley had said, done his best to hide his racing pulse, and then decided to just not have a heart for the rest of that afternoon. "I'm bored. Go free some slaves, I'll find something better to do."  
  
And so the days in Rome passed them by. Wine, food, theatre, and the occasional blessing, temptation, miracle and curse.  
  
Semi-consciously, Crowley had begun contemplating the fact that the two of them seemed destined to cancel each other out; a thought that rooted itself deep and steadily grew into the idea that would become the Arrangement. Subconsciously, he'd begun furnishing a house.  
  
Well, decorating a room. Though it wasn't so much the decorating that was subconscious as the reason behind it.  
  
Crowley hadn't yet gotten the hang of sleep so had no real need for permanent shelter. Despite this he'd been gifted a domus during the unpleasantness the year before [1] and had seen no reason to not accept it. After he'd gotten rid of all the servants and slaves [2] it ended up a good place to bring Aziraphale when they wished to converse away from prying eyes and ears. The angel would never stay for long, but his visits still numbered hours, if not days of time in total, that surprisingly lovely year in Rome.  
  
During the hours after Aziraphale had departed the domus, Crowley would find himself shedding feathers at an unusually rapid rate.  
  
Wing grooming hadn't really been a thing before time had been invented. Angels hadn't needed shape or substance before God had gotten working on Creation, and once the angels had begun to take shape said shapes tended to stay the way they'd been asked to, until time became a factor. [3] With the passage of days, months and years thrown in the mix, both angelic and demonic wings ended up losing feathers, growing new ones, and getting rumpled.  
  
Crowley had gotten into the habit of tending to his own wings every now and then, to keep them in good shape. Getting at all the feathers wasn't the easiest thing, but when you had actual miracles on your side it wasn't impossible. He'd quickly come to see it as another part of maintaining his vessel, a vital step in keeping it in tiptop shape.  
  
The addition of a sudden need to hold on to the moulted feathers thus didn't alarm him, at first. He kept them in one room of the domus near the back, stored in jars, and made sure Aziraphale never saw. It felt private, somehow.  
  
Then many things happened, as things tend to do, and before long (give or take a few decades) Crowley found himself in a completely different part of the world, given missions far away from Aziraphale. The domus had long since been levelled to the ground and the feathers burned during some war. At this destruction Crowley had felt a faint, strange sensation of loss that he'd never experienced before when leaving a place. It unsettled him. Going around missing parts of Creation wasn't something a demon should do.  
  
They shouldn't miss angels either.  
  
The second nest saw the light of day just a hundred years after the first one. A century may seem a long time, but for an immortal a century can pass by as quickly as a week, if one keeps oneself busy. Crowley _had_ been kept very busy and also hadn't crossed paths with Aziraphale too often (that is, not as often as he'd have liked to), so the century had more or less flown past.  
  
Then he and Aziraphale had ended up ordered to influence the same rival chieftains.  
  
The mission on its own had been terrible. They'd been stuck in a cold and wet land called something Crowley quickly forgot (or pretended to forget). The locals had been suspicious of strangers, especially strangers who kept their eyes hidden. The food had been awful. But despite all this, he'd seen Aziraphale almost every day for a whole year, and that made up for all grumbling humans and rainstorms in the world.  
  
Once Crowley had established himself, he'd ended up getting a tent; a cramped affair with little room for more than sleeping. The walls ended up covered in feathers within the first month.  
  
Sadly, the tent got buried in a mudslide of Crowley's own making. That trick helped him finish his mission, but all his moulted feathers were lost and Aziraphale left the valley without as much as a goodbye. It didn't matter that Crowley had done his best for them both to succeed at their missions [4]. Heaven clearly didn't appreciate half-finished projects, which Crowley really should have remembered, having lived there once.  
  
He barely noticed the loss of the nest, that time, because Aziraphale giving him the cold shoulder stung far worse.  
  
It took almost two hundred years to get back into the angel's good graces. Not that Aziraphale outright shunned Crowley; that would have been unbearable. But he kept hesitating, rarely stayed too long in his company. As if Crowley couldn't be trusted.  
  
This should have been the natural order of things. Demons didn't trust other demons, so angels absolutely shouldn't.  
  
But Crowley found that, above all things else, he wanted Aziraphale to trust him. He also wanted Aziraphale to talk with him and walk with him and drink with him and eat with him and… and…  
  
The gift giving began then. Not outright _giving_ per say, but there had definitely been gifts. Crowley took a deep dive into all the things Aziraphale enjoyed and came up with details he'd previously been unsure of; what Aziraphale's favourite wine was, what entertainment he sought out most, what food delighted him more than other options. When he'd amassed enough knowledge to anticipate Aziraphale's interests, Crowley 'just happened' to take them to places where such things were available.  
  
He also may or may not have had things left at Aziraphale's current dwelling 'on accident'. People dropped things all the time. It was hardly strange that clumsy people lost their things outside (and on two occasions, inside) Aziraphale's home every other decade, now was it?  
  
"Humans can be so strange." They'd been in Istakhr, overseeing a union that both Hell and Heaven found important, though neither Crowley nor Aziraphale were ever told why. "Yesterday, a boy dropped a wreath of flowers right outside my home, but when I called after him he said he hadn't been paid to pick it back up again. Isn't that odd?"  
  
Crowley couldn't help himself, because he never could, so he asked: "That why there's a wreath decorating your dwelling now? To help its owner find it?"  
  
"It is a lovely wreath," Aziraphale had said, pointedly avoiding eye contact. "I couldn't leave it lying in the dirt. That would have been tantamount to a crime!"  
  
On rare occasions, Crowley knew when not to push his luck. He'd thus made no comment about how the flower wreath had blooms never seen in that part of the world or how he knew said blooms to be some of Aziraphale's favourites. Green growing things weren't one of Aziraphale's main interests, but he did have certain plants he liked more than others, and it had seemed…_appropriate_ to give him flowers, the previous day, even if Aziraphale wouldn't know it was a gift.  
  
Said previous day had marked the 42th century of their acquaintance, but who was really counting? [5]  
  
A handful of years after that conversation, Crowley's careful approach bore fruit. They still didn't see each other too often at this point in history, every other decade or so, but when they did Aziraphale would greet him with a smile.  
  
Being welcome had never felt that good before.  
  
"Ah, Crowley!" Aziraphale would say, patting the seat next to his, or making room for him at a table. Or he'd spot him across a crowd and give a jaunty wave, before he remembered himself and feigned a lack of recognition.  
  
Crowley let him. If a poor pretence that they didn't know each other was what made Aziraphale feel safe sharing food and words with a demon, Crowley would happily play along.  
  
Well, maybe not completely happily. But play along he did.  
  
By the third nest, Crowley had begun catching on that his behaviour had a drive behind it. See, he never had the urge to find a place to live unless Aziraphale was nearby. He definitely didn't start raining feathers every which way when he took up residence somewhere, unless he'd recently seen Aziraphale.  
  
It had taken him a good four hundred years, but he finally put the pieces together. And then he cursed a lot.  
  
"This is a joke, isn't it?" Crowley found himself hissing at the sky. "Like I'm some blessed _bird_, doing that - that _thing_ that birds do! Prancing about, building things, trying to-." Here Crowley ran out of words and choked a bit.  
  
That nest he burnt. The pain of losing it echoed well with his rage and shame, so for once he welcomed the destruction.  
  
Still, many other nests followed it. As did many other gifts. Human or bird or what have you, courtship seemed an inevitable instinct that had been thrust upon Crowley. He couldn't stop his wings from moulting any more than he could stop himself finding interesting food and new entertainment for Aziraphale to sample.  
  
He was lost to it, and he knew it. He couldn't make himself regret it. How could he when he got to watch Aziraphale laugh at jokes and beam as he ate new food?  
  
He also couldn't stop himself from wondering if nest building had been a joke played on fallen angels only, if it had been a punishment for him in particular, or if it, _maybe_, just maybe, applied to all of angelic stock?  
  
There were no nests in Hell and he doubted there were any in Heaven. But perhaps - and here Crowley cursed his own optimism as much as he clung to it - perhaps it was an instinct shared by angels and demons who'd stayed on Earth long enough?  
  
When the Arrangement took its start in 1020, Crowley began looking for signs of Aziraphale settling down. Unlike Crowley, Aziraphale had from the start been quick to find himself a dwelling among humans, preferably a comfortable and cosy one, but also seemed happy to give up said dwelling and move on at the drop of a hat. Crowley tried to mimic this behaviour best he could now that they were meeting up every other year and failed miserably. Being around Aziraphale this frequently had him itching to find a fitting building and coat it in feathers, hole up there until their next meeting and just _be_.  
  
All their meetings happened in public places, preferably in crowds or in shadows or both, as had become their habit. The main difference from before was that they now sometimes met up to plan ahead. While previous chance meetings sometimes had gone on until a shared dinner or walk had been won out of it, these meetings now _started_ with such things. They met up at places they both enjoyed (well, mostly places Aziraphale picked or places that Crowley picked that he knew Aziraphale would like) and there they planned, shared their burdens, and Crowley gently, careful pushed for more time with the angel.  
  
The only years from 1020 to 1299 that Crowley didn't have a nest in the works were the years assignments kept them apart for more than a handful of months. Each time Crowley saw Aziraphale abandon a house or a hut or a tent, he disassembled his current nest and set fire to the feathers he'd saved up.  
  
It wasn't time. It was never time. The nests were never good enough.  
  
And yet he kept building them, one more complicated and detailed than the next. Feathers weren't enough any more, he needed a place they both would like. A place in which Aziraphale would enjoy spending time.  
  
Crowley rarely started from scratch, but he tried all manner of buildings and architectural styles. He tried steering conversations with Aziraphale onto the topic of human homes and what Aziraphale might like or dislike about the current style of living the locals had created. What aversions Aziraphale voiced, Crowley made sure to banish from his latest work in progress.  
  
Then the 14th century rolled around. There were no nests during the 14th century.  
  
"Is it ever going to stop?" Crowley had asked Aziraphale, standing at the edge of yet another dead village.  
  
"It must," Aziraphale had said and looked for all the world as if he wished to reach out, place a comforting hand on Crowley's shoulder or take his arm. Or maybe that had been mere wishful thinking on Crowley's part. "It is," a pause, "_horrific_, yes, but there are many humans living healthy lives elsewhere. This will stop spreading and go away, eventually. The world is only on its fifth millennia, after all." Aziraphale straightened up, drawing in on himself in that way that set Crowley's teeth on edge. "It can't end now. It is Written."  
  
Crowley took no comfort in Aziraphale's faith. Faith was the one part of Aziraphale Crowley had never learnt to embrace. He kept to himself after that conversation, letting terrible humans do far worse work than he ever could think up, accepting credit for it while he mastered the art of sleeping and wished Aziraphale and him could be given tasks anywhere but in this cursed part of Creation that one day would be called Europe.  
  
Thankfully that dreadful century only lasted a hundred years, as was the custom of centuries. The Black Death went away, even if the many new weapons stayed and the Hundred Year War kept up momentum. The 15th century came rushing in and Crowley had never welcomed the passage of time more.  
  
He ran into Aziraphale in the Ottoman Empire in 1402 and immediately began his next nest. Several followed it. [6] He made sure Aziraphale never saw them. _Not yet, not yet._  
  
No nest he built felt quite complete. No matter how many rooms it had, how comfortable its sleeping area or how brightly lit or cosily dark, no matter where he hid his feathers, it never felt fit to present to anyone. Least of all Aziraphale.  
  
Ironically, a conversation with Aziraphale gave Crowley his next idea to try in his trial and error nest building.  
  
"I couldn't resist," Aziraphale had said as he showed Crowley the stack of books. He'd been carrying them with such care, showing off strength one could go forgetting he possessed even when one had known him since the Garden. [7]  
  
At this point in time, Crowley had learnt to gauge when Aziraphale was presenting him with a passing fancy and when he was sharing something fragile and important. The written word had captivated Aziraphale since its invention, and Crowley well remembered the near disaster that had been the burning of Alexandria's library. [8] While they did often squabble over minor things (and on rare occasions ended up in arguments that took years to cool down) Crowley had no intention of starting one now.  
  
"Smart thing, storing up on those." He'd indicated the books with as casual a nod as he could manage. "Better and better quality, from what I've seen. You learning to make them?"  
  
The delight that this idea clearly fuelled in Aziraphale lit a growing warmth in Crowley, burning brighter and brighter at Aziraphale's hesitant, "Do you think I should?"  
  
"Got to be a good thing, doesn't it? Helping to store knowledge. That's got to be one of your things." In this Crowley had no doubt. Aziraphale had his (gloriously) selfish impulses, but keeping books could hardly count as any degree of evil. Someone probably thought it was, but humans made up new sins every other century and then threw them away again, as often as they switched up their body language and thoughts on privacy. [9]  
  
"I suppose you're right," Aziraphale had said, beaming. Crowley had mentally begun adding bookshelves to his nest.  
  
Meaningful trinkets were clearly what he'd been missing, and space for them. Crowley himself kept memorabilia more than items he valued for their function, but he'd been keeping said items stored in all manner of places, safe and out of sight. Gathering them all in one place set his heart racing, but once he'd gotten Leonardo's portraits and that fan Aziraphale had forgotten after sharing tea during the Tang dynasty up on the nest's wall, the place took on a more acceptable, inviting air.  
  
This was what he'd been missing. Other than the obvious.  
  
Surprisingly, for all of his reservations about being discovered by Heaven or Hell or both, come the 18th century Aziraphale began inviting Crowley back to whatever dwelling was his for the moment, mirroring what Crowley had done before the Mudslide Disaster. Dinners in taverns soon became quiet evenings sharing a meal in the home Aziraphale had established in the city or town or village they'd ended up in that decade.  
  
Crowley tried to not see this as any kind of sign. He still took it as one, nursed the hope it gave him far into the night as he filled yet another house with black feathers, moved precious memories from old nest to new.  
  
"Do you have a home?" Aziraphale asked Crowley one evening in 1731, during a dinner shared after a successful stint at cooperation.  
  
"A what?" Crowley's mouth answered before his mind could catch up with the question.  
  
"A house," Aziraphale clarified, gesturing at the ceiling and walls that surrounded them. "You've had them before. I've seen them." They had indulged in a fair share of alcohol during the meal, and after it. "It's been a while since I saw you in," he hiccoughed, "in one. Centuries I think. Several centuries, in fact. Have you got one?"  
  
Crowley poured wine into his windpipe and willed it back into his mug before he could start coughing up a lung. "Bwhuk?"  
  
"Oh don't you give me that look," Aziraphale said, clearly affronted. "We're currently in _my_ home. Why do you feel the need to keep your base of operations hidden when we meet in mine all the time?" His gaze didn't focus but he still managed to deliver an impressive glare mixed with worry in Crowley's general direction. "Are you-"  
  
Crowley, locking a mounting wave of panic behind all personal defences he could muster, tried very hard not to think of the piles of feathers taking up the floor space of his current nest. No matter if they meant nothing to anyone but Crowley, no matter if he longed to find out if they would mean something to Aziraphale, instinct screamed at him that he couldn't show the nest. Not yet. It wasn't finished! It was a mess!  
  
But he also couldn't have Aziraphale start questioning him again. "No, no, we can meet at my place next time," he mumbled into his jug of wine, letting it cover what parts of his face his glasses didn't. "Just didn't cross my mind. Don't think you'll like mine. Y-yours is, uh, more…more home-y. Cosier."  
  
"Do you think so?" Aziraphale said, beaming in a way that stopped Crowley's heart in the best of ways. "I do try. You know," he leaned forward in his chair, teetering on falling off it, "I've been thinking of opening a bookshop."  
  
He whispered the words as if they were a great secret, like he'd once whispered how much he enjoyed the theatre, or the first time he'd shown Crowley his first favourite pair of shoes. Like someone sharing something beloved and wonderful, yet shameful.  
  
The bookshop plan came as no surprise in itself. A bookshop seemed a fine solution for where to keep all the books Aziraphale had amassed without calling Heaven's attention to an angel holding on to so many worldly possessions. It also sounded far more permanent than any home Aziraphale had ever made before.  
  
Crowley forced himself not to react too much. That would put far too many cards on the table. "A bookshop sounds like a fine idea," he said, allowing himself a genuine smile, encouraging, _tempting_.  
  
"I thought so," Aziraphale said, wiggling in that way he did when he thought he'd done something clever. "They can't complain if I'm doing my best to fit in, can they?"  
  
"No they can't." Crowley smiled and smiled. "More wine?"  
  
That evening, Crowley went and constructed his first ever decoy nest. It wasn't a nest, not really, but it was a base of operations to invite Aziraphale to. It was sterile and unfriendly, and they quickly returned to their custom of meeting at Aziraphale's home. Crowley kept up the decoys, just in case.  
  
Their work led them apart a while after that, but not for long. Crowley couldn't stay away when Aziraphale got himself in more trouble than he could handle, almost ending up decapitated during the French Revolution. Sometimes Crowley thought Aziraphale got himself into danger deliberately. A foolish thought. A wistful thought. Crowley had no idea how Aziraphale had managed to keep from discorporating this long. If not for his demonic intervention, the angel would have ended up back in Heaven millennia ago!  
  
Each of these brushes with near-body-less-ness chilled Crowley to the bone, though the thrill of getting to come to the rescue never wore off. He pushed all that aside as they went for lunch, had crepes, laughed and shared stories of their months apart. He did his best not to react too strongly to Aziraphale confirming that the bookshop idea was well under way.  
  
Ever so slowly, they circled closer to each other. When they before had skipped from continent to continent, country to country, they now both settled down in what had become Great Britain.  
  
Well, Aziraphale settled down there and Crowley swiftly followed.  
  
His emotions ran away with him when Aziraphale finally opened his bookshop in 1800. With the brief threat of promotion (Aziraphale's) averted (by Crowley) a sense of relief and hope dug its claws into Crowley and refused to let go. He paid the angel visits every other week, thinking up excuse upon excuse to not only take Aziraphale out to dinner or music halls, but to visit the bookshop.  
  
He might have been looking for feathers.  
  
"What did you say it was called?" Crowley shouted to Aziraphale one day in 1802 when the angel had gone to the back of the shop, having remembered mid drinking session that he had a project there only half finished. This had left Crowley alone in the main portion of the shop, unobserved.  
  
"I'm not sure what it's called now, if it's still there, but when it opened Antoine called it _La Grande Taverne de Londres,_" came Aziraphale's answer from deep within the shop. He'd clearly sobered up, likely not wanting to risk mucking up a book restoration.  
  
Crowley had sobered up too, to better sneak about. "And when did it open?" he kept up the conversation, making sure his voice carried from the sofa in the middle of the room where he'd been seated, instead of from where he actually stood.  
  
"1786?" came Aziraphale's distracted reply. "Or maybe 1782? I honestly can't recall. The food was masterfully prepared, either way. I highly recommend it!"  
  
Crowley found no feathers, but plenty of inspiration for his next attempt at a nest.  
  
Buying a whole estate had been ludicrous and yet the only logical next step. Aziraphale looked so at home in 19th century London that the idea of him in a grand estate near the city fit perfectly into the world. A large house for the two of them meant there'd be plenty of space for books and beloved trinkets as well as a number of places to keep feathers out of sight.  
  
Things were going well. Wonderfully well. They met up almost weekly, and Aziraphale seemed settled like never before in London and in his bookshop. Being a schemer by nature, this triggered Crowley's mind to immediately jump to step five and six of his current plan, though he technically still should be working on step one. Step one of course entailed finishing the nest. Step two was showing Aziraphale the nest. Step three and four were still a work in progress, far too dependent on Aziraphale's reaction to said nest, which Crowley had no control over. But step five and six he could control.  
  
Safety measures.  
  
He'd been so sure Aziraphale would give him the holy water. It hadn't even crossed his mind that the angel would think he might use it on himself! Before he knew it, he was metaphorically back in the second century, standing next to an equally metaphorical mudslide and buried tent. Only this time, he couldn't make himself go begging the angel for forgiveness. _Fraternising?!_ Was that really all their Arrangement was to Aziraphale?  
  
It hurt. More than Crowley thought it could have, it dug deep into him and gnawed and bit and clawed, icy and paralysing.  
  
Crowley ended up spending the latter half of the 19th century in bed, waking up at the dawn of the 20th with a commendation for a number of nasty things the humans had gotten up to during his attempt at rest. He even got a word or two of praise for his mastery of stealth.  
  
The nest…well, he didn't destroy that one. He didn't sleep away the century in it either. He had it sold, all his personal affects carefully stored in a handful of safe places right before he faked his human persona's death and let a barrister take over. Then he found a quiet village in Scotland, made himself the owner of a house on its outskirts, and covered himself with all the blankets he could find.  
  
The feathers he hadn't kept. They burned, as always.  
  
When war came back to Great Britain, Crowley finally got out of bed. He didn't much involve himself in the first one, but by the second he'd distracted himself living as a human for so long he couldn't ignore the fighting. Not completely.  
  
Also, Aziraphale almost got himself shot by Nazis. Hurtful words or not, there was no way Crowley would let that happen. Even if it meant walking into a church.  
  
"Would you," Aziraphale had said, car door already open and book bag safely cradled to his chest. "Would you like to come in? For tea?"  
  
Crowley had been oh so tempted. But Aziraphale sat tense in his seat, avoiding eye contact. Maybe it was panic in hindsight at how close he'd come to being discorporated. Maybe.  
  
But their fight in 1862 still nagged at Crowley. Hell, it had left him out of commission for fifty years. He couldn't risk setting off something like that, not so soon. He wondered if he ever would dare risk it again.  
  
"Some other time, angel," he'd said, forcing his hands to relax on the Bentley's steering wheel. "Busy days for us demons, right now. See you around."  
  
He'd driven away. He hadn't looked back. He hadn't been able to work up the courage.  
  
The latest and most long-lasting nest, Crowley began in 1971. Since he'd sworn off ever building another one, its fortitude was more than a little ironic.  
  
Its foundation was laid in 1967. He'd gotten back to his place of residence, a tartan thermos full of holy water in his trembling hands, and the urge had hit him like a runaway train. He'd begun shedding feathers right there on the floor, wings peeking into existence without as much as a by your leave.  
  
It had always been an urge. He wouldn't have started doing something so foolish as building nests if the act hadn't been a compulsion, [10] but this time it wasn't so much a nagging thought as it was a _need_.  
  
"Fuck you," he whispered to no one in particular. He got to work securing the holy water and then he had a lie-down. He tried to go to sleep, but Aziraphale's parting words played on repeat no matter how he tried to force them away.  
  
How could the bastard give him hope and tell him they needed to slow down, all in one meeting?! Their conversation could have been interpreted many ways, but Crowley knew Aziraphale better than anyone else in Creation. He knew he hadn't been let down easy or told in some roundabout, gentle way to keep away for good. Just to wait. Crowley could have blamed this chosen interpretation on wishful thinking. He _could_ have, but that would have been lying and he didn't have time for lying or denial any more, not when it came to Aziraphale. The angel had that covered for the both of them.  
  
Crowley drifted in a no man's land between glorious anticipation and pure dread.  
  
"A picnic!" he yelled at the bleak ceiling of his flat - not a decoy nest, seeing as he had no nest to hide then. Decoys required he try to match them to his corporation's current style and he hadn't had the energy for that since 1862. "Dinner at the Ritz!"  
  
They'd had food together plenty of times. They'd even shared food while sitting on the ground, long before tables or table manners. But the rules for food sharing were ever changing. Surely Aziraphale must have known how _suggestive_ his propositions came across? His style of clothing may lag behind the times but the angel had always been a stickler for keeping up with proper conduct.  
  
"He can't have meant it like that," Crowley told himself as he lay on his bed in a pool of feathers. The extreme moulting would have left a bird's wings bare to the bone, but on Crowley the damned feathers grew back as quickly as they fell. He grabbed a handful of them, crushing them as he gritted his teeth, fighting a losing battle against long entombed daydreams. "I'm just making mountains out of… Out of… damn, what's the word?"  
  
The metaphor escaped him. In frustration he flung the ball of feathers away from himself. They fluttered to the floor, infuriatingly soft and light.  
  
"I can't make another one," he said, sounding exhausted even to his own ears. "I _can't._"  
  
He lost track of time. The moulting had stopped, but his mind wouldn't stop spinning in circles. He thought of his caches, of all the things he'd never been able to throw away completely. He thought of Aziraphale's bookshop, still in the same place more than 150 years from its opening day. The longest time the angel had stayed in one place, one home.  
  
Eventually, he got up and went to work. His actual work. He threw himself into city planning, into TV schedules and advertisement; things that would keep him well away from anything angelic or heavenly.  
  
These distractions lasted him four years. Then, while driving back to London from a week long job out south-east, he came across The Cottage.  
  
The Cottage was located in A Village, because actually remembering their real names felt like an invitation to failure. The Cottage - which Crowley eventually managed to think of as merely the cottage, without the ominous capitalisation - caught his eye with such force that he nearly put the Bentley through a tree.  
  
It was perfect. Everything inside of him screamed that it was perfect; location, size, style, garden. All of it.  
  
"Someone lives there," he said to no one, staring straight ahead out the windscreen, refusing to turn his head and look at where the cottage loomed. No, not loomed. It looked far too welcoming and homey to loom, which made the situation worse. His mind flooded with images of comfy sofas and bookshelves and blooming flowers. "Or its full of vermin. Or the neighbours are Nazis."  
  
He got out of the car, cursing and trailing feathers behind him.  
  
The purchase ended up an easy affair. The cottage had been for sale for a whole year with no takers, or at least no takers the current owner had been interested in selling to. The second it became clear that Crowley had no intention of tearing the cottage down to build something else, he could sign for it that same day.  
  
He could always sell it. Would be a suitably evil deed, buying a quaint cottage under false pretences and then giving it to some rich businessman in need of a second golf course.  
  
"Everything go well?" Aziraphale asked him as they met up in St James's Park two days later.  
  
"Yeah, it went all right." Crowley threw bread at the ducks, hitting one in the head. "Yours?"  
  
"Quite well." Aziraphale had been out of town as well, blessing a peace negotiation a few countries over. "Is there anything we need to-?"  
  
"No." Crowley had been prepared for the question. He'd focused so hard on answering it in an uncaring and relaxed way that he'd forgotten to wait for Aziraphale to finish speaking. Biting back a curse, he added, "No, we're good. You did your thing, I did mine. Head offices happy and so on." He made sure to keep his eyes on the ducks, glaring them into submission. [11]  
  
Aziraphale shifted his weight from foot to foot. Crowley couldn't see it, but he didn't need to rely on sight to notice.  
  
"Would you," Aziraphale said, hesitant in that way he only was when he planned on suggesting something he felt he shouldn't. Crowley kept very, very still. "Would you care for a drink? I've, eh, got my hands on a new vintage of red I thought we could try."  
  
"At the bookshop?"  
  
"Yes." More hesitation, along with the wringing of hands. "And I thought we might," hands fluttered to the side, mirroring the way he'd likely shift his wings if they'd been visible. "Well, it's a little silly, and I know you don't enjoy tragedies, but I've ended up with quite good seats to a production of Hamlet that looks promising, and-"  
  
"Sure," Crowley said, this time intentionally interrupting, to keep Aziraphale from working himself up and talking himself out of his own idea. As fun as it could be to see him flustered, it wasn't as enjoyable to watch when your own unnecessary heart was about to burst out of your chest. "Theatre and wine, I'm up for that. When is it?"  
  
Aziraphale drew in a breath, a soft little huff of air that signalled pleased surprise. "Tonight, at seven."  
  
Crowley dared glance at Aziraphale then. Their eyes didn't meet, Aziraphale's gaze focused on the squabbling ducks in front of them, which gave Crowley the opportunity to take in the angel's utter joy without worrying too much about his own expression.  
  
Humans had this notion that angels were beings of light and love, and Crowley couldn't really fault them for that - humans rarely met any angels. In practice, most of them approached their God given tasks as the work it was, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and they rarely did more than reflect light.  
  
Not Aziraphale, though. No, Aziraphale could be petty and selfish and vindictive, but he was also kind in a way so unlike all other angels Crowley had ever met and when he smiled, truly smiled, he shone.  
  
Or it just looked that way to Crowley. Because, as implied previously, Crowley was _fucked_.  
  
Pretending to have lost track of the time, though really doing his best to hide how Aziraphale's joy utterly delighted him, Crowley looked at his watch. "Gives us an hour to get there. Lift?"  
  
Aziraphale turned towards him, still shining. "That would be lovely."  
  
It was in that moment Crowley knew he wouldn't be selling The Cottage.  
  
The rest of the 1970s he spent ferreting out his caches and moving suitable pieces from them to the new nest, between work and spending time with Aziraphale. He also went back to his old habit of decoying, just in case. The flat he stayed in changed bit by bit, decor and location following the changes of his corporation as fashion demanded.  
  
The 1980s and 90s he arranged the rooms in the cottage to perfection. He made sure that the locals remembered workmen heading over there every now and then, on the off chance that a nosey neighbour should glance inside and notice all the changes. There were other ways to prevent such things, sure, but this was a nest, not a scheme or a decoy. It needed to be solid, or as solid as he could make it while working via demonic miracles.  
  
He even employed a cleaning company to tend to the place yearly. They'd always call ahead to make sure he still required their services, and while he'd say yes he'd make sure to clean the whole cottage himself. He left the cleaning company with both payment and the memory of having cleaned the place, so they wouldn't ask questions. Wouldn't do to let them grow tired of him and stop reminding him to give the nest a thorough cleaning.  
  
The 21st century rolled around and that pinged something at the back of Crowley's mind, but he was too busy putting the finishing touches on the nest's library and fretting over where to best hide his feathers to pay it much mind.  
  
Until he was handed the Antichrist.  
  
Now, one would think the cottage would slip Crowley's mind while he and Aziraphale worked to prevent the oncoming end of days. Strangely, rather the opposite happened. When faced with the stark reality that the war to end all wars could be but eleven years away, the cottage turned into a soothing escape. What time he didn't spend as a nanny or meeting with Aziraphale, Crowley dedicated to planning. He didn't go to the cottage too often, paranoid it would come to harm, but he kept sketching on ideas for it, for the same reason humans look at cats videos while dealing with grief or burnout or both.  
  
He even brought a handful of memorabilia into his decoy nest; a breach of his own strict protocols that he indulged in to steady himself.  
  
"I can't believe it'll all be gone soon." They'd been meeting in a cafe at the British Museum, Armageddon only four years away. "U-unless we succeed. Which we will. Of course."  
  
Crowley, who hadn't slept for three months and who sat before his first bite of food in two weeks, didn't have the energy to summon false courage. The world around them had a heavy quality to it, the air itself counting down to the greatest turf war in history.  
  
Aziraphale kept speaking, as he tended to do when nervous. Where nerves silenced Crowley, they gave Aziraphale the ability to talk himself in circles and loops worthy of a race car track. "There is so much I still want to do," he said to his devilled eggs. "Places to visit, plays to see, books to read. New favourite authors to meet! New mad inventions to observe, waiting to see what ends up used and what goes away for a while only to be reinvented or rediscovered." He turned a shaky smile on Crowley. "I don't think humans ever will stop surprising me. Isn't that delightful?"  
  
Crowley managed a curt sound of agreement, most of his attention on suppressing the urge to say, "I could surprise you too. I bet you've never seen a nest built by a demon before." His angel food cake remained untouched.  
  
"Do you think they'll ever figure out the joke about the dinosaurs?" Aziraphale asked, coaxing Crowley into conversation. Crowley let himself be coaxed, let Aziraphale talked the both of them away from worry, regret and anxiety, if only for an hour or two.  
  
Time ticked down to an ending and the both of them did their best to alternate between ignoring it and thinking up new strategies for how to prevent it, how to keep Warlock as neutral and human as possible.  
  
Direct intervention with the Antichrist came to an end on the boy's 8th birthday, on orders from Hell. This left Crowley far too much free time in which to fret. Once he'd cleaned his decoy nest to perfection and started all the unnecessary roadwork he could think up, he gave in and visited the nest.  
  
You'd think there wasn't much left to work on there, given that Crowley had been tending to it for more than forty years. You'd think, but Crowley was a perfectionist and an immortal, which could be a heady combination when it came to interior design. He also hadn't figured out where to store his feathers. He couldn't leave them in the bedroom forever, no matter how soft an addition they were to the bed. Even stuffed in a mattress and pillows they were too obvious, too eye-catching.  
  
In frustration, he took a break and poured all his energy into the garden. Far too soon he had it blooming and thriving and trembling, robbing him of distraction.  
  
This is when he turned his attention on the village. Asking Aziraphale to leave London would be ludicrous all in itself, of course, a pipe dream! But Crowley couldn't even in his most fanciful of daydreams imagine asking Aziraphale to come live in a community with half its houses empty. Through all of their shared history, Aziraphale had always been drawn to bustling centres of culture. It seemed to Crowley that Aziraphale wished to be where the newest plays were being written, where the best food could be found, where he'd never have to feel isolated.  
  
Admittedly, distance didn't much matter to immortal creatures made of pure magic, but it was the _principle_ of the thing. The village needed to thrive.  
  
"Online sales, you say?" said Grace (oh the irony) to Crowley as he'd finished giving his temptation performance. She owned the local bakery, a vital corner stone in his plan to make the village fitting as a (very very hypothetical) long term home for Aziraphale. "Huh, hadn't thought to try that, but I sure could do with a bit of extra income. Very kind of you to assist! Inherited the old cottage from your uncle, you said?"  
  
Next came the local bookshop, the community centre, the gardening club and the combined library and cafe. Crowley made sure his interference remained distantly demonic, redirecting money from bank accounts and stealing prize nominations for the benefit of the village while making sure his actions showed up as random acts of mayhem Down Below. He made doubly sure that his actions attracted no human attention. The last thing he needed was for law enforcement to come snooping around the village.  
  
Before he knew it, there was less than a year left until he'd find out if his and Aziraphale's plan with the Antichrist had worked out. The realisation hit Crowley like a ton of blessed bricks.  
  
"Where have you been hiding yourself, dearie?" Old Margret - thusly nicknamed to distinguish her from Young Margret who'd moved back from Sussex the year before- asked in early 2019 when Crowley hadn't shown his face in the village for a good six months. He'd been out in the garden, taking his stress out on the new rose bushes, and hadn't noticed her sneaking up on him. Crafty old woman.  
  
"London," he answered, doing his best to keep his body breathing evenly. [12]  
  
"Throwing yourself into work again?" Old Margret had parked herself on the other side of the garden wall, clearly no leaving any time soon.  
  
"You could say that."  
  
Old Margret tutted at him. "I thought you were a sensible young person who understood that work isn't the end all be all of life."  
  
Crowley, being one of the farthest things from a young person that existed on Earth, chose not to comment. He instead silently cursed his own stupid idea of getting 'established' in this stupid village, which was clearly going to burn with the rest of everything worthwhile unless he and Aziraphale managed to pull off their plan. _No pressure._  
  
"Magpies having a go at your strawberries?" asked Old Margret, derailing Crowley' mounting panic. He followed her gaze and was gut-punched by shame. Dozens of black feathers littered the grass between the rose bushes and the wild strawberries he'd blackmailed into the garden the year before, out there for all the world to see. He hadn't even noticed he'd been moulting. His wings hadn't even manifested!  
  
Then he saw a white feather and nearly discorporated before Old Margret's words caught up with him. They weren't his feathers. They weren't…anyone's feathers. Just bird feathers, regular feathers, not, not _indecent_ feathers.  
  
Running away from the word 'indecent' at the speed of light, his mind focused itself on the strawberries with a will. They'd clearly fought back against the thieving magpies, as ordered, but he could see a few missing berries. It seemed he'd have to give those lazy plants another talking to. Those strawberries weren't for birds, they were for-  
  
"If you've got the time, would you mind gathering some to bring to the community centre tomorrow evening, luv? Fatima is starting up a new arts and crafts circle, and this time the theme is feathers."  
  
That brought Crowley's attention back around. "Huh?"  
  
"Arts and crafts," Old Margret repeated, smile wide and far too innocent for such a cunning lady. "Starts at six o'clock. We'd be ever so grateful for all contributions. Ta-ta!"  
  
Crowley watched her go in numb shock, gathering his thoughts together like a parched man careful not to spill water from his cupped hands. It wasn't the subtle invitation to join the arts and crafts evening that had him reeling; neighbours of the cottage had tried to get him involved in communal activities since he'd first interfered with Grace's bakery in 2017. [13] No, it was the disturbing yearning the idea of feather decorations had started up inside of him.  
  
The concept wasn't new to Crowley. Humans had made decorations out of all parts of Creation since Adam and Eve had left Eden. They'd make art out of trash if given the chance, which was one of the many things Crowley liked about them. Feathers had been one of the first things to adorn human-made jewellery and weapons equally.  
  
So why hadn't the thought ever struck him before to…to do something similar with the near mountain of moulted feathers hidden in the cottage's bedroom?  
  
The way his face more or less caught on fire as he allowed this thought to fully form answered that question.  
  
Crowley told himself he wouldn't. He told himself this all the way to the community centre, where he showed up the following evening with a box of magpie feathers. He told himself this as he sat through Fatima's tutorial on how to sanitise the feathers, side by side with Old Margret and ten other villagers. He mentally screamed this at himself as he got back to the cottage after midnight, tipsy and trembling, and took the stairs one careful step at the time up to the nest's one bedroom.  
  
He attended every damn meeting of the arts and crafts group that spring. [14]  
  
All went smoothly until the group's fourth meeting. Since the majority of the people attending had young children, no one switched their phones off during class. It wasn't unusual for the lessons to be briefly interrupted by a harried partner or babysitter calling for back-up or advice, so no one raised an eyebrow whenever a jaunty tune or old fashioned ring broke through the usual chatter.  
  
Thus, while dealing with a really finicky bit on a feather and flower decoration, not even Crowley fully registered that his phone had started ringing.  
  
On pure reflex, he picked up and said, "Can't talk right now, in the middle of something."  
  
"Oh, dear, sorry to bother you. I-I just wanted to know if we could reschedule the opera tomorrow? There's this auction-"  
  
Attention mostly on not breaking his flower arrangement, Crowley interrupted with, "Yeah, that's fine. You go have fun book hunting. Tuesday instead?"  
  
"Ah yes, that would be lovely! I'll see to tickets. Thank you for understanding."  
  
"I've known you long enough to not get between you and books, angel. See you Tuesday." He hung up, smiling at Aziraphale's ridiculous "Toodeloo then!" as well as at the knowledge that Aziraphale would be in an extra good mood come Tuesday, should all go well at the auction. Or maybe it'd go terribly and he'd be deeply frustrated. Either way it'd mean a long conversation, longer than average, and maybe they'd end up drinking the night away in Aziraphale's shop after the opera. Maybe he'd even pretend to pass out drunk on the bookshop's old sofa, spend the night. Or morning. Yeah, that was an excellent thought.  
  
Crowley gave a triumphant "Ah-ha!" as he managed to attach the final feather to his project. He looked up to find the rest of the group, even Fatima, staring at him with great interest. Crowley immediately backtracked through what he'd just said, out loud, in front everyone. Also, the fact that he'd managed to put Aziraphale on speaker caught up with him. Because the universe was like that sometimes.  
  
Pretty often, actually, in Crowley's experience.  
  
"Angel, huh?" said Mitch with a canary-catching grin. "Cute pet name."  
  
Crowley scrambled for words. "It's just a nickname. He's terribly pious. Insufferably so."  
  
Whether it was his words or the way he'd said them [15] the gleeful expressions around him swiftly turned to looks of either confusion or sympathy. Somehow that was worse. Crowley quickly excused himself.  
  
The likely discussed him and the phone call while he wasn't around [16], but they mercifully avoided mentioning it to him. The lessons carried on through fireplace decor, window chimes, frames, and lamps.  
  
The Antichrist's 11th birthday ticked ever closer.  
  
"Fatima, do you think we could do something like this next time?" Andrea asked near the end of spring, holding her phone up to show off whatever Pintrest fuelled idea had grabbed her attention this time. Crowley had lost count of the times the class had been derailed by her flights of fancy, but since they kept extending the lessons no one complained.  
  
"Yeah, I could work with that," Fatima answered. "Why don't you show your idea around while I go see over my supplies?"  
  
Andrea passed her phone on, the tiny machine wandering from hand to hand, accompanied by sounds that varied from mild interest to "ohs" and "ahs". When it reached Crowley he nearly dropped it.  
  
The screen showed off two round mirrors, each with a halo of feathers around it. One ring of feathers was black. The other was white.  
  
Somehow, he managed to keep it together through the rest of the lesson.  
  
At least, he thought he'd managed to, until Fatima called an end to class and Old Margret pulled him aside before he could up and leave. He stopped because she'd been on him earlier about some village event or other and that would have been a welcome distraction. However, what she said was:  
  
"He likes white, does he?"  
  
"Whut?"  
  
"Your young man."  
  
Crowley made a noise caught between pain and relief. The question broke him a little, but it was so freeing to have someone _see_. Even if it wasn't the right someone.  
  
Humans had mistaken him and Aziraphale for a romantic couple innumerable times. While such misunderstandings usually pleased Crowley they were based on human habits and cultures, and those were ever changing. The nests and the feathers, however, they were constant, permanent. They couldn't be laughed off as a misunderstanding or blamed on the ever changing whims of humans. Old Margret likely had no idea what she'd wandered into, but that didn't matter.  
  
"Yeah," Crowley said to the painting over Old Margret's shoulder. "It's sorta his colour."  
  
"He's in London?"  
  
"Mmm-hmm."  
  
"Thinking about moving any time soon?"  
  
"N-not that I know."  
  
Crowley outright flinched when Old Margret took one of his hands. He didn't pull away though.  
  
"I get the impression that you've been waiting for this fellow for quite some time now, dearie." She patted the back of his hand as she spoke.  
  
Crowley allowed himself a huff of laughter, because there were exaggerations and then there were _exaggerations._ "You could say that."  
  
"Then maybe it's time to stop waiting." She looked up at him without pity but with deep sympathy, a look very hard to pull off. Had he not been the target of it, Crowley would have complimented her skill. "My George is a wonderful man and I'm ever so happy I married him." She gave Crowley's hand a gentle squeeze. "I'd never have met him if I'd clung too hard to loves before him. Just a thing to consider."  
  
Crowley shook his head. The mere thought of someone who wasn't Aziraphale walking into his nest - human, angel, demon, or otherwise - turned his stomach. For fuck's sake, he wasn't making nests because he wanted a hypothetical someone to wander into them! He was building them for Aziraphale and Aziraphale only and there was no changing that. If he hadn't learnt to live with that yet it was about damned time he did.  
  
"I see," Old Margret said, as if she actually did. [17] With a soft sigh, she let go of his hand and smiled. "Don't you go pining away on us, luv. We still need you to help out with promoting next month's flea market."  
  
Muttering the words 'slave driver' without much force, Crowley made his retreat.  
  
He spent that night in the nest. He got very drunk and very maudlin, toasting each and every piece of memory and newly made decoration like human soldiers would toast each other before battle. He then locked up and left, likely forever.  
  
The summer of 2019, Crowley didn't visit the cottage. There wasn't time. There literally was a finite amount of Time left for Earth and all the creatures on it. Unless he and Aziraphale managed the impossible.  
  
The Antichrist turned 11. Hell hounds were released. The Four rode. Angels and demons armed themselves to the teeth and stood ready, howling for blood.  
  
And then…well, then the world didn't end.  
  


* * *

[1]Crowley had been sent to Rome to tempt Emperor Caligula and he'd gotten their just in time to witness the final heydays, so to speak. The assassination of Caligula and Caligula's immediate family had been equally disturbing to take in. All in all, the only reason Crowley put up with Rome was because it had interesting company in it. He never did figure out why Emperor Claudius took a shine to him.  
  
[2]The servants had quickly found other work. The slaves had quickly found themselves in completely different countries with new names and plenty of fitting currency. Crowley argued that as slavery was part of Rome's social structure, all actions against society automatically were evil - especially as all money given to the slaves had been stolen. Stealing from the rich was extremely evil, since you could do it so many more times than you could steal from a poor person. That was just common sense.  
  
[3]Seeing as the angels' shapes had been God's first project that involved corporeal forms, there had been some trial and error involved. Well, trial and error on the angels' part. They'd all been given the ability to both take a visible form and change their shape, and then just been told to find a form they felt suited them. Many a burning mass of wheels and six-headed lumbering giants populated what would become Heaven for an amount of existence (that couldn't really be called 'a while' since there were no minutes or hours or days yet), ever changing as this or that angel found out news about yet another work-in-progress the Lord had on Her metaphorical table. It wasn't until humans were revealed to be God's favourite project that the majority of the angels took on humanoid shapes, either to please God or due to the newly invented concept of peer pressure. A handful of the Heavenly Host staid non-humanoid, but most settled for the general humans-with-wings form and have stayed that way ever since. Fallen angels aka demons are more prone to shape-shifting, but like angels they are creatures of habit. Thus their chosen default shapes also tend towards the humanoid.  
  
[4]It was a rather complicated plan that had involved cutting two warring groups of humans off from each other, thus making their chieftains no longer interesting in the eyes of Heaven and Hell. Sadly, this, as so many of his plans, blew up in Crowley's face rather spectacularly while accidentally keeping him in Hell's favour. It had been Crowley's first tentative attempt at cooperating with Aziraphale. It had also been the last time he'd ever attempt cooperating without any actual established cooperation beforehand.  
  
[5]Crowley was. Obviously.  
  
[6]Having lived on Earth for 6000+ years, Crowley's many failed nests could have filled a number of scrolls or hard drives or whatever manner of information storage one operated with. A detailed list of them would slow any story they showed up in down to a grinding halt, so they're best left vague and summarised.  
  
[7]Crowley had stayed away from the Garden once his first temptation had been over and done with, sticking to the desert outside. While he'd been meant to keep an eye on the humans, he'd mostly paid attention to the angel closing up the hole in the Wall with impressive speed. It had been distracting in a way Crowley couldn't put words to then.  
  
[8]If asked, Aziraphale would definitely have described this event as a full on disaster, nothing near about it. Then again, he'd been busy watching knowledge burn while Crowley's focus had been on getting the two of them out of the fire with their bodies intact and operational.  
  
[9]The Seven Cardinal Sins irked Crowley most of all. Some monk in the fourth century, _millennia_ after the creation of Creation, sits down and writes a list about things he thinks are Bad, and suddenly several humans decide he's got something figured out and start following that list. It had taken Crowley decades to convince Aziraphale to enjoy food again! Dante Alighieri's blasted poetry hadn't improved that in the least. Another terrible thing spawned by the 14th century.  
  
[10]At least that's what Crowley told himself.  
  
[11]This of course didn't work. The ducks of St James's Park have stopped fearing death many years ago, and stopped fearing Death somewhere in the 1920s. Crowley ranked very low on the list of threats against duck-kind.  
  
[12]Crowley tended to forget the whole breathing thing when he got stressed out, only using his lungs when he felt like shouting or screaming. Understandably, this tended to disturb humans and didn't make for good neighbourly relations. Trembling rose bushes the human brain could filter out or blame on a very local gust of wind, but people who didn't breathe pinged all of their I Saw This In A Horror Movie Once gut reactions.  
  
[13]While not the only interesting thing to ever arrive in this village, a vintage Bentley driving man's supposed inheritance of an up-until-then empty though cared for cottage, that he then proceeded to clearly pour his heart and soul into maintaining but not living in, did draw the attention of the locals. Grace, having been the first person to actually speak to Mr Anthony J Crowley swiftly had the local gossips - Old Margret, Andrea, Mitchell aka Mitch, and Jane - invested in the mystery of this business savvy man of indeterminate age (Grace had put him somewhere between mid thirties to early forties, while other observers put him anywhere between early twenties to mid fifties. Crowley's shape-shifting tended to get out of hand when he was stressed). They quickly set to work figuring out who Mr Crowley really was and what his plans for the cottage were. A handful of scattered over-the-garden-wall conversations and gentle ambushes at the bakery later, they all agreed that Mr Crowley - Anthony at that point - was 1) invested in the village's prosperity and 2) clearly working out some issues through house renovations. Said issues were what they set their sights on unravelling next, which at the start of 2019 still remained a work in progress.  
  
[14]Much to the delight of the arts and crafts group. While Anthony Crowley proved impressively evasive in talking about himself, he could keep conversation going all night and took the lessons seriously, keeping the group on task despite Mitch and Andrea's tendency to blather on about their children or that new show on telly and not hear Fatima calling for the group's attention.  
  
[15]It was both.  
  
[16]Yes. At length. Wine was often involved.  
  
[17]She did. Old Margret had seen people hopelessly in love before, sometimes in her own mirror. She knew what a person ready to let go looked like and such a person looked nothing like Anthony J Crowley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: The world hasn't ended and Aziraphale has thoughts on happiness as he stumbles upon a secret.


	2. An Angel and a Very Important Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale stumbles upon some new and interesting real estate information.

Day-drinking as a concept had never bothered Aziraphale. Non-alcoholic beverages safe to drink on a regular basis were, on a historical timescale, a fairly new concept in most parts of the world. He'd thus not yet gotten into the habit of feeling shame for indulging in wine before dinner time.  
  
Also, with how things had turned out after the 11 year long End-of-the-World-scare, he doubted he'd ever bothering cultivating any shame over it in the future either.  
  
"Top-up?"  
  
Crowley's head lolled against the back of the bookshop's one and only sofa [1] and Aziraphale didn't bother to hide how much this sign of deep relaxation pleased him. He didn't get a verbal response, but Crowley held out his glass which was answer enough.  
  
Aziraphale poured Crowley more wine and then went back to pretending to read. He'd even brought out a homemade bookmark, stylishly tartan in pattern, to see if Crowley would comment on it. Crowley hadn't, but seeing how pliant and soft he'd allowed the alcohol to make him, Aziraphale couldn't find it in himself to be disappointed. He'd seen Crowley drunk before, innumerable times, but it was rare to see him off his guard. In fact, this whole situation was novel to the extreme, in the very best of ways.  
  
They'd cultivated a comfortable silence for the past twenty minutes and it had slowly bloomed into a companionable one. It was such a rare, new thing this; being able to afford peace and quiet together. Before the summer's wonderfully anticlimactic conclusion to the 6000 year long work in progress that was the Great Plan, all their meetings had been short on time. Though there had been many meetings since that first one in Eden, there had always been a necessary endpoint to them all, and no true guarantee there would, _could_, be another encounter. But now things were Different.  
  
It made Aziraphale feel bold.  
  
Then again, he'd been feeling bold since the day of the Apocalypse and it hadn't done him much good yet. Not in this.  
  
He kept tripping himself up. It had been weeks [2] and still he hadn't worked up the courage to speak. Natter on, yes. Comment, definitely. Rant and praise, absolutely, and there had also been a lot of bickering. But no _speaking_.  
  
Old habits were hard to break, he supposed. Despite the fact that this newfound freedom was theirs, shared, Aziraphale found himself waiting for Crowley to take yet another in a long line of first steps. It wasn't fair and he knew it, but every time he opened his mouth to speak he ended up side-tracking or starting on a topic wholly irrelevant to what he truly wanted said.  
  
Like now:  
  
"Do you," Aziraphale began, then stopped to gather his bearings as the room around him did a jaunty little spin. "Do you know what I could go for right now?"  
  
Crowley made a noise that could have been a "What?" or a general noise of contentment.  
  
"Some falafel."  
  
It wasn't a lie. Aziraphale liked falafel and had long ago gotten into the currently popular habit of indulging in some while drunk. A falafel wrap went with drunkenness as well as bookshelves went with books. But it wasn't what he'd intended to say. He'd wanted to…to… _Oh, sugar!_  
  
"You want falafel, angel, I'll get you falafel." Crowley staggered to his feet, his drunken swaying not much different from his usual walk. "You stay right here. Don't move. I'll be back before you know it."  
  
Crowley might have been too drunk to miracle up food, but a tiny voice at the back of Aziraphale's mind - one he'd been trying to silence for the better part of six millennia - piped up with a _"Look! He's being gentlemanly and getting you real food! He **listens** to you!"_  
  
For once, Aziraphale didn't slam the proverbial door shut on the voice. Not only because Crowley long ago had voiced agreement with Aziraphale on the fact that magically summoned food never tasted the same as the non-magical variety. No, Aziraphale had tentatively let the voice go on nattering about all manner of things since that thrilling yet terrifying bath in Hell. He had no reason to keep it quiet now.  
  
It was his own voice, after all. You could only ignore yourself for so long.  
  
"I'll be right here," Aziraphale promised, giving Crowley his brightest of smiles. He might have failed at what he'd meant to do, but he'd prompted chivalry out of Crowley and that was a glorious consolation prize.  
  
"Good! Great!" He was out the door with surprising speed, stride confident and determined. The air of purpose around him made Aziraphale's heart flutter.  
  
The chime above the bookshop's front door gave a merry tinkle as Crowley exited. Aziraphale's smile lasted until the door had closed and the chime had gone quiet. He contemplated cursing, but it didn't quite fit the moment. Swearwords had their place, but that place was, in Aziraphale's opinion, when you wished to express despair or terror. Not… frustration? Was that what he was feeling? Yes, partly, but that wasn't the full extent of the churning and bubbling that laid siege to him.  
  
"You'd think I would have gotten the hang of emotions at this point," he said to the hatstand and then had to laugh at himself. It did not come out a happy sound. "I've run out of excuses, and yet…"  
  
And yet.  
  
Aziraphale turned his attention back to the now empty sofa. Crowley had left no mark on it, no wine splash or indentation, but traces of his aura lingered. Aziraphale almost dared reach out and brush against them; not with his fingers, of course, but with his mind. He shied away at the last second, torn. Why should he indulge in such a thing when he couldn't even make himself take Crowley's hand again? [3] Sit here and paw at Crowley's energy like some stalker sniffing at their victim's perfume, why really!  
  
Wringing his hands, Aziraphale looked back down at his book, though the words written therein made no sense to him in that moment. It didn't help that he knew, or at least thought it very _very_ likely, that Crowley would welcome such attention, and more. No, that made things worse. It made all his doubts seem even more insignificant, made him feel hysterical for hesitating. It sent his thoughts spiralling, because he should be ready! This slow edging towards Something had been a dance between them for thousands of years. He'd had plenty of time to prepare himself for arriving at said Something. By all rights, Crowley should have grown tired of him and his endless pauses and doubts by now!  
  
Not that he had anything to fear in that regard. Very few actions he could take would drive Crowley away from him. He'd put that to the test more then once, during the most recent months in particular. No matter how cruel he'd been in his rejection, Crowley had returned to him.  
  
For a demon, Crowley could be so unfathomably patient. Not in all things, no, definitely not, but when it came to this fragile thing between them, Crowley seemed ready to wait indefinitely.  
  
"But he shouldn't have to. Oh fiddlesticks, _now_ I can say it!" Aziraphale huffed a sigh of magnificent passive-aggressive force. Had there been customers in the shop, they would have stampeded.  
  
Absentmindedly Aziraphale ran a finger over the bookmark he'd previously tried to draw Crowley's attention to, a soothing motion. He had hundreds of them about the bookshop, made from scratch, by hand; yet another detail that made the shop his home.  
  
"Maybe it'd be easier if we were-" He cut himself off, because saying 'more alike' felt both wrong and terrible. "If _I_ had a better idea of how to, eh, of, oh no, this is no good!" Words were supposed to be his forte! Grand gestures were Crowley's domain, as were subtle favours and meaningful looks, but spoken language had always been Aziraphale's territory. And now that he needed it the most, it was failing him.  
  
"Serves me right," Aziraphale told the bookmark, teetering on the edge of glumness despite approaching falafel and the gentle embrace of tipsiness. "Boys cry wolf and angels cry wait. It's almost fair in that sense." Though not really. Fair would have been if he'd approached Crowley now and Crowley had been the one to demand they slow down or go their separate ways for a while. Instead, Crowley was out getting him food; a sign of devotion with innumerable precedences that Aziraphale had yet to return in a satisfactory manner.  
  
Gloomy silence ensued.  
  
It took Aziraphale several more minutes to notice that Crowley had left his mobile telephone behind. Aziraphale likely wouldn't have realised this at all, if the device hadn't begun to ring.  
  
Instinct honed by decades of practice, Aziraphale picked up the telephone and answered, "Hello?" He hadn't answered the phone as it was meant to be answered, seeing as he'd never used a mobile one before, but since he expected it to work like the one in his shop, it did.  
  
"Mr Crowley?" came a cheerful voice from the other end of the line.  
  
All the telephone conversations Aziraphale had participated in up to that moment, minus a handful, had been business calls. In his drunken state, he therefore defaulted to his bookshop keeper voice, and said: "I'm afraid he's not here at the moment. Can I take a message?"  
  
"Sure! Just tell him Liza called, from South Downs. Please let him know we're renewing the cleaning contract for his cottage here for another year, as usual, unless he calls to cancel it before tomorrow. Thanks!"  
  
"Eh, right-o!" Aziraphale found himself saying, thought the woman had already hung up on him. "Jolly good," he said to the room at large, lowering Crowley's mobile phone from his ear as slowly as if it were a delicate piece of china he didn't wish to dent.  
  
_What in Creation?!_  
  
Aziraphale placed the mobile phone back on his desk, where Crowley had left it. His mind jumped out of its downward spiral of gloom and set off in all directions like a pack of corgis down a race track.  
  
Why in the world did Crowley own a cottage? No, better question: why would Crowley need to own a cottage? What could he use it for? And why would he have kept it hidden?  
  
Full or restless energy, Aziraphale got to his feet. He reverently placed the book and bookmark back on the shelf they belonged on, and then began pacing.  
  
Had Crowley started up a project? It seemed the only logical conclusion, but what in the world for? What nefarious scheme could he get up to in the South Downs of all places? Though the foremost questions should likely be _why_ he had a project up and running. Hadn't Crowley said they had no sides anymore?  
  
"Calmly now," Aziraphale told himself, though it didn't help much. "Let's think about this rationally." He took a deep breath he didn't need and moved from pacing to fidgeting. Rearranging the misprinted Bibles proved a suitably mollifying task. "Why would Crowley own a cottage I know nothing about?"  
  
After the initial shock, tinted with a hint of guilt at having answered Crowley's telephone without his knowledge or consent, it didn't take long to think up a whole slew of reasons as to why Crowley might own a cottage. It wasn't his usual style - Crowley's homes tended towards the sleek, barren and modern side of the living-space spectrum - and seeing as he'd been in Crowley's current home less than a month ago there had to be another reason.  
  
The most obvious answer was, still, a project. But the project could be an old one that hadn't panned out yet. The young lady on the phone had indicated the cleaning contract for said cottage had been active for years, if not longer.  
  
"It's probably nothing," Aziraphale said to his favourite Jane Austin originals. "It's not like we tell each other about _every_ project we involve ourselves in." Only almost. "Besides, I couldn't expect him to stop being a demon in three weeks time, could I? Or ever. It's not like I've left all my work behind." He tidied the bookshelf, distracting himself from the sharp pang of loss that admission evoked. No more orders, ever again. No more surveillance, yes, but also no more _purpose_.  
  
With a sigh, Aziraphale put his signed edition of _Pride and Prejudice_ back in its place of honour. Then he gasped.  
  
Aziraphale had always been good with patterns and dealing with vast amounts of information. There was a reason he'd been able to follow the logic of one Agnes Nutter in a fraction of the time it had taken her descendants to do the same. When he put his mind to a mystery it tended to give up the goods fairly quickly. Like now.  
  
The pattern was this: Crowley had always been one step, if not a hundred steps, ahead of Aziraphale in everything that involved the two of them. Logic thus dictated that he should be ahead of Aziraphale regarding their mutual retirement. Crowley also knew Aziraphale terribly well. Better than anyone else in the universe, really. Crowley must have thought through all possible scenarios that included the two of them leaving Heaven and Hell behind and doing whatever it was they were doing now. The both of them had also known the world's approximate end date before they knew its exact planned one. Crowley thus must have set this cottage project up for their mutual retirement and, unlike all his other projects, kept it secret from Aziraphale. For a reason.  
  
Maybe…maybe it was a project meant for Aziraphale to thwart?  
  
"Surely that must be it?" Aziraphale didn't direct the question at anyone or any thing this time, but it felt good to speak. It had always been his habit, when anxious or confused, yet he'd never dared voice his thoughts on this particular topic aloud. Until now. It was such a relief! "Crowley isn't the forgetful sort. He must have left his telephone behind on purpose, knowing he'd be getting a call that I instead would answer. Yes, this must all be an elaborate scheme! A truly wily one!"  
  
Aziraphale felt light as a feather. Crowley must have noticed how lost he'd been, now that Heaven had no more tasks for him. He had his bookshop to occupy him, yes, and of course Crowley's company, which he for the first time could enjoy without worry, but this monumental change had still left him somewhat adrift. [4]  
  
"It'll be like a game!" Aziraphale said, all but bouncing in place with delight. They'd not played games too often, before. Aziraphale had played plenty of games with human opponents - chess, checkers, whist, pub quizzes, competitive crossword solving, etc. - but he'd always shied away from getting Crowley involved in such things. Having Crowley as an opponent hit too close to home, and sharing any form of team with him hit even closer, drawing metaphorical blood.  
  
But now…  
  
"So very, very clever of him," Aziraphale continued as he wandered over to the kitchenette at the back of the shop to make himself a cup of celebratory tea. "We should try other games too, of course, but this is an excellent start! I shall do my best to be a good opponent."  
  
As the tea water boiled, Aziraphale contemplated what Crowley would expect from a 'good' opponent. "He won't want me to let him win, I don't think," he told the kettle. "That would be rather an insult, I think, him going through all this trouble and me giving up right away. No, I think," he bit his lip, hesitated a heartbeat, "I think he'd rather I'd _cheat_." He chuckled at his own daring. "Mind, I don't think he'd expect me to actually do such a thing, not outright, but I still think he'd like it."  
  
A thrill leapt down Aziraphale's spine. He wasn't inexperienced with fibbing - claiming anything else would have been a blatant misrepresentation of facts - but he'd always preferred to be subtle about it, and avoided it unless he through it absolutely necessary. [5] The idea of being open in his bamboozling, of telling Crowley face to face that he'd won a challenge because he'd willingly broken the rules of engagement, _that_ would be something.  
  
Breaking the rules would be tricky when one didn't know the full extent of them, but he'd give it his best shot.  
  
"Mind-reading could be a good start." With how many times Aziraphale had admonished Crowley for doing just that, it would surely be unexpected. Besides, how else would he find the cottage, other than asking Crowley?  
  
Reading the thoughts of someone he'd only heard and not seen was tricky, especially while impaired by alcohol. Tricky, but not impossible. After two false starts, Aziraphale managed to figure out the address of the cleaning company, the cottage, and accidentally Miss Liza's home. He quickly forgot about the home address; such an invasion of privacy was beyond the pale and completely unnecessary for his goals.  
  
What he also did was make Miss Liza forget she'd called Crowley. Or rather, he made her forget she'd spoken to anyone and encouraged her to call again. He felt particularly pleased with this final addition, positively mischievous.  
  
It was as Aziraphale settled back in his most well-behaved chair with a fresh cup of tea and a pleased smile that the door chime sounded, heralding Crowley's return.  
  
"Falafel!" the demon crowed, holding aloft the bag of takeout as the Lady of the Lake once had held up a fairly important sword. "With extra hummus and chips on the side."  
  
"Wonderful," Aziraphale said, all thoughts of games and thwarting temporarily swept aside by Crowley's open glee at having accomplished his task. He conjured up a table for Crowley to place the bag on; it would go back upstairs once they were done eating. "You are most kind."  
  
Crowley grumbled something about demons and kindness, though with little bite behind his bark. He put the bag down on the table with a flourish before reclaiming the sofa and his half-full glass of wine. Aziraphale allowed himself another in a long line of fond smiles as he freed his meal from its logo-covered prison. Crowley had made sure to buy from one of the vendors Aziraphale liked best, which wasn't a surprise but still felt unexpected.  
  
Once he'd set up the meal to his satisfaction, Aziraphale paused. "Nothing for you, my dear?"  
  
"Nah," Crowley said. "Not hungry."  
  
Strange how such a simple admission could be both heartwarming and infuriating.  
  
"Are you sure?" Aziraphale held up the plate he'd summoned from the kitchenette and angled the rather fetching way he'd arranged the falafel wrap and chips on it towards Crowley. Being hungry was, after all, completely optional for angels and demons alike. "There's plenty to share."  
  
Crowley gave a faint shake of his head. "You enjoy that. I'll be fine until dinner."  
  
"Suit yourself then." Aziraphale forced himself to waffle on no further, turning his attention to the falafel wrap. This situation was nothing new, he told himself sternly. He'd even requested food for himself and himself alone, far too late for lunch and far too early for dinner. He should have known how this would play out.  
  
He allowed the meal to distract him, for it was a worthy distraction.  
  
"That was perfect," he said half an hour later, dabbing at traces of hummus with a cloth napkin. [6] He stole a glance at Crowley; still on the sofa, still with a half-full glass of wine.  
  
Any other time,_ many_ other times, the attention would have been flattering and electrifying. To know that Crowley was perfectly content to sit in silence and watch Aziraphale enjoy himself was a true gift. But this afternoon, such reminders of patient waiting only needled.  
  
Crowley liked food. They'd shared plenty of meals and Crowley, while perhaps not as enthusiastic about eating as Aziraphale, clearly enjoyed all manner of foodstuffs. Then again, Aziraphale knew of plenty of things Crowley enjoyed. There was just nothing Aziraphale knew of that Crowley, for lack of a better term, adored. Not in the same sense that Aziraphale adored good food, books, and sleight-of-hand magic, to only mention a few earthly delights. Crowley seemed to have made a secret list of all the things Aziraphale had ever indicated he liked, [7] while Aziraphale had only the vaguest of notions of what he could give Crowley to delight _him_.  
  
"Should be chocolate in there as well," Crowley said, either oblivious to Aziraphale's inner turmoil or delighting in it. Aziraphale suspected the former. "Just in case you get peckish before we're done at Albert Hall."  
  
"How thoughtful of you!" Aziraphale said, and truly meant it.  
  
"Can't have you rushing off mid symphony to grab a bite to eat."  
  
"As if I would." Aziraphale made sure to put on a truly mock-offended tone, to cover up any other emotions he might be radiating.  
  
Crowley chuckled. "You've done far more ridiculous things in the name of grabbing a bite to eat, angel."  
  
_To get a moment alone with you, yes,_ Aziraphale failed to say. Even though that likely had been an open secret from the first day he'd tried said 'strategy', he couldn't find it in himself to come clean. Not yet.  
  
But would 'yet' ever come? Would he ever be rid of all the waiting and worrying and denying; weights around his ankles that he should have left behind with Heaven?  
  
_A problem wholly of my own making._ He couldn't make himself regret his caution. The dangers had been far too real, far too powerful and overbearing to ever be fully pushed aside. What he did regret was taking so little charge of himself. He could have ensured their safety and still kept up with Crowley. He could have, but he hadn't dared. Hadn't trusted his own ever fraying self-control, once he'd gotten so far as to admit there was something between them that required self-control to keep at bay.  
  
He'd never dared dream of what they had now, until it had been made real. For all of Aziraphale's faith Crowley had always been the better optimist.  
  
"Aziraphale, is something wrong?"  
  
He'd been quiet for too long. Aziraphale shook his head and tried to refocus. He had a small box of chocolates in his lap and Crowley had shifted his sunglasses, baring amber eyes. Worry shone in them, painting over his previous expression of contentment. Aziraphale hated it; hated having caused it; hated giving Crowley doubts.  
  
"Did something-"  
  
"Crowley, would you-"  
  
The mobile telephone rang, interrupting them. Aziraphale could have sworn he heard Crowley stifle a curse. He would have done so as well if the ringing hadn't taken him so utterly by surprise. A little ridiculous, with how heavily the phone had weighed on his mind less than an hour previous.  
  
"_What?_" Crowley barked as he answered, having snatched the phone up off the desk. Straining to listen, Aziraphale heard a familiar cheerful voice speak, though he couldn't make out the words. As Miss Liza talked, Crowley grew unnaturally still [8]. "Eh, yeah, sure, sure," he said seconds later. "Not looking to cancel. As you were." He pushed a thumb against the device and the call audibly ended.  
  
He sank back down on the sofa, hiding the phone away somewhere on his person. He looked like he'd seen a ghost. [9]  
  
"Something important?" Aziraphale gently prodded.  
  
"No! No, not in particular, no," Crowley lied. Another glimmer of distress rushed across his face before he got his expression under control, his glasses back in place. "Just, eh, an old associate."  
  
Guilt poked at Aziraphale. A lot of planning must have gone into this scheme of putting him on the scent for the cottage, so to speak. The way Crowley had 'forgotten' his phone in the shop and then at his return shown no sign of knowing it had been left behind had been masterfully executed. And now he thought his scheme had failed. Crowley must be ever so disappointed and worried. [10] The guilt grew twice in size at the knowledge that Crowley was distressed due to worry for _him_. A proper maelstrom of shame, right there for Aziraphale to dive right into.  
  
He reminded himself how pleased Crowley would be when he revealed his trickery, and managed to hold his tongue.  
  
"Shall we go for a walk?" he said, sobering up. "We can go past the flea market in Covent Garden. Been a good while since I was there last. One never knows what exciting things one might find there." Especially when in the company of Crowley.  
  
"Flea market, huh?" The blank mask Crowley had put in place slipped aside, leaving room for an interested smirk that Aziraphale couldn't help but answer. He might not know what Crowley adored, but he knew low-level mayhem entertained him. Whatever terrors he could think up for the flea market attendees should hopefully distract him until it was time to leave for the evening's music performance.  
  
No police needed to be called to Covent Garden that evening [11] but Crowley left with a spring in his step and Aziraphale felt very pleased indeed. The symphonies were soaring and the dinner scrumptious. All in all, the afternoon and evening turned out very successful, leaving Aziraphale on the proverbial ninth cloud as they went their separate ways for the evening.  
  
If it hadn't been for his plans for the next day, he would have invited Crowley inside when they got back to the bookshop. Crowley thankfully seemed fine with temporarily separating; likely ready to go home and plot a new way to draw Aziraphale into his cottage game. How delightfully surprised he would be tomorrow!  
  
As usual, Aziraphale didn't sleep. Unlike usual, he didn't spend the night restoring a book or reading or practising card tricks. No, instead he began to plan a trip out of town.  
  
Unlike Crowley, Aziraphale preferred communal travel. He could have taken control of a car, yes, or hired a cab, but travelling alone was unpleasant and the only person he felt comfortable sharing hours of travel with one-on-one was Crowley. This said, even Crowley was a questionable option since he drove like a maniac. No, when Aziraphale had to travel he preferred taking a bus or a train. [12]  
  
Thus, bright and early the following morning he turned up at Waterloo station, a list of carefully written directions in one hand and a bag of emergency books and nibbles in the other.  
  
He easily found a nice window seat with optimal space between himself and other passengers. Soon the world outside rolled past at a pace perfectly suited for observing without watching. A meditative view, you could say. Pleasant chatter in the background from his fellow travellers, the smell of the coffee and tea people had brought along for the ride, the repetitive sounds of the machinery around them; it all added up a background against which one could find a moment to relax and think.  
  
This wasn't the first day they'd spent apart since, well, _since_. Crowley had his plants to tend to (and hadn't they been a surprise!) and Aziraphale had felt a need to keep his bookshop open, at least a little, to retain something close to normalcy. But the hours they'd been apart had been few and the distance between them short.  
  
Aziraphale hadn't minded this. Far from! Even the moments when he could see Crowley worry had been touching and wonderful, if edged with a bit of regret. If he'd know how much his temporary discorporation would affect Crowley, he'd have…  
  
_"Yes, what would you have done?"_ his own voice asked him. _"Or rather, what **should** you be doing?"_  
  
A very good question. He couldn't change what happened, nor could he change his underwhelming response to Crowley's signs of grief; though in his defence he hadn't been able to see Crowley at the time, hadn't been completely sure of the cause of his upset, and there had been rather pressing matters to attend to. All the same, now that things had settled down, he really should address it.  
  
Or should he? Would Crowley rather he pretend it never happened? Should he…ask?  
  
But that would require speaking about important thing between the two of them. His track record of accomplishing that was rather paltry.  
  
Unbidden, memories of That One Night In Crowley's Home (as Aziraphale had ended up calling it) came crying for his attention. It had been such a terrible, wonderful night. They'd both been exhausted from the madness they'd lived through, but they hadn't rested. No, they'd thrown themselves into figuring out Agnes Nutter's final prophecy, sharing ideas and fretting over when their time would be up. Once they'd concluded what they needed to do, they'd practised pretending to be each other, which had been thrilling in itself. More thrilling still had been when Crowley had gone off to play distraction, wearing Aziraphale's corporation, which left Aziraphale in his body and in his home.  
  
Of course he'd been worried. Terrified, really. But those emotions could be eased, now that he knew their planned meet-up in St James's Park had taken place and that they'd both survived their ordeals. Now he could focus his recollection on the many signs of habitation Crowley's home had shown, the plants being the foremost but not only example.  
  
Crowley had always struck Aziraphale as a transient creature, always ready to put down one thing that had attracted his attention to pick up something new. He never bought clothes, he manifested them, and always in accordance with whatever parts of the latest fashion he found interesting. He never stayed too long in one home, never decorated it, never filled it with objects he'd come to adore. He never said what food he liked, only what he disliked. He never told you what play was his favourite, only complained about the ones he hated. He enjoyed himself, yes, and could even talk about things he liked when coaxed to, but he never seemed to get attached.  
  
Not like Aziraphale did. And maybe he'd been a little insecure about that. Maybe. Maybe he'd spent hours, if not years, agonising over being the only person of angelic stock to collect things and have favourites, when he was supposed to love all of Creation equally. Maybe he'd been overjoyed the moment he realised Crowley cared for his Bentley the same way he cared for his books.  
  
_"There's no maybe about it, stop distracting yourself!"_  
  
Aziraphale sighed. No head office to bother him anymore, so of course he'd have to go bother himself, didn't he? Still, it was best to come clean, if only to himself. Yes, he'd been on edge over his own likes and loves, for a long time. There, over and done with! What he should be focusing on was figuring out what challenges might await him in the South Downs, or even what his next step should be in regards to Crowley.  
  
The thought of gifts reared up then, as it was wont to do every other century. Crowley had been giving him gifts for millennia; at first covertly [13] and then openly, without shame. Around the 12th century Aziraphale had been enough aware of this (and of himself) that it had give him the urge to answer in kind. He'd tried, many times, and fallen short. Then again, he'd never tried to openly give a gift. It had all been "Ah, they are wonderful but Leonardo is your friend, so by all rights you should at least keep your piece" and "I just finished this novel and I can't say I fully grasped it. Why don't you give it a read, tell me your perspective on it?" and so on.  
  
He could hardly expect Crowley to react with enthusiasm to covert gifts, could he? Especially not when Crowley had moved on from such subterfuge literal ages ago.  
  
_"You've wanted to,"_ he told himself. _"So many lovely jackets never bought and boxes of candy eaten by yourself."_ All true. It had been torturous, trying to guess what would be a welcome gesture. The thought of a well-meant gift ignored had been painful enough to keep him from trying too often. But, as he had to keep reminding himself, things were different now. Not only had their circumstances changed drastically, Crowley interior decorating skills had taken a sudden leap forward. A small one, but surely a meaningful one?  
  
He should get Crowley a housewarming gift. A few decades too late, but better late than never! But what would be a fitting addition to Crowley's flat? A new plant? Artwork?  
  
Deep in such thoughts Aziraphale almost didn't notice arriving in Westchester and nearly missed changing trains.  
  
"So, where are you headed?" the bored man seated closest to him asked, likely to make time go.  
  
"To look at a cottage in the South Downs," Aziraphale said, because being as close to honest as possible had always been the best way to avoid the truth, in his experience. You just had to leave off the important or questionable parts, such as here where he definitely didn't mention that his intentions were to investigate said cottage for demonic activity. Humans tended to either get uncomfortable when you talked of such things, or far too interested.  
  
"Lovely place," the man said. "You should visit the national park while you're there."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind."  
  
The exchange sparked another fire of adoration for Crowley's cleverness. He'd picked a beautiful spot for his project, surely knowing Aziraphale would be tempted to take in the sights. The nature was one thing, of course, but the _literary_ connections were almost too wonderful to resist! Reliving personal memories along with experiencing new discoveries could keep him busy for weeks in this place. Focusing on his mission would be a true challenge. Such a wily old serpent!  
  
Getting to the village the cottage belonged in took some effort on Aziraphale's part. The nature here was beautiful, yes, but the strongest urge he had to fight was to seek out all those sources of literary inspiration the South Downs had on display.  
  
"Stiff upper lip," Aziraphale said, averting his eyes from a fork in the road that eventually would take him to Virginia Woolf's final residence. "You have all the time in the world to dawdle here, after you're done with your mission."  
  
Then he entered the village itself and got even more sidetracked.  
  
The bakery was the first and most obvious attention trap. It bore the fairly plain name of _Grace's Baked Goods_ and shouldn't have drawn his attention so forcefully. It shouldn't have, but the bakery's sign had a distinct font and butterfly decoration that jogged his memory.  
  
Crowley had brought him slices of cake from there, on and off for at least a decade. Delicious, perfect cake.  
  
"He's been planning this for an impressive amount of time," Aziraphale muttered as he finished the last crumbs of a blissful Sachertorte. "Laying traps and distractions years in advance! It's only fair I cheat with how he's stacked the deck against me."  
  
To make sure the time he'd spent in the bakery wasn't wasted, he approached the baker before leaving. To praise her work, of course, but also to subtly interview her on possible connections to Crowley.  
  
"Just visiting the area?" the baker, who actually turned out to be called Grace, asked.  
  
"Ah, yes," Aziraphale said, doing his best tourist impression. "Never been," this century, "but your cakes alone made it worth the trip from London!"  
  
"You are too kind." She downright blushed at the compliment. "And just so you know, you can order from us on the Internet."  
  
A bit of fumbling later, she produced a business card adorned with the same butterflies as the bakery's sign. It had what Aziraphale had come to know as a website and an electrical postal address on it, along with the regular address, a phone number, and opening hours.  
  
"One of my new neighbours thought up the idea," Grace said, in the tone of voice that told Aziraphale that 'new' could mean anything from 'moved in last month' to 'wasn't born here'. "Knows all sorts of things about this stuff, he does! It's really turned things around. Delivery is of course not the same as coming here, and I can only have my nephew drive so far with a cake, but it helps make ends meet"  
  
The conversation continued in that fashion, and it didn't take long to figure out that Crowley very likely was this new neighbour with knowledge of "the interwebs". A distraction that bore good fruit, all in all. Crowley had a network set up in this town, that was for sure. He'd need to be on the look out for more of them, after he'd seen to the cottage.  
  
He almost veered off his path a few more times once he'd taken his leave of Grace. There was a number of interesting little shops and cafes in the village, the most distracting being an auction house that looked very promising in the rare books department. [14] Either this village had been a lucky find for Crowley or he'd spent decades moulding it.  
  
It wasn't until late afternoon that Aziraphale found himself at his intended destination.  
  
"Right," he said, double-checking his directions. "It should be somewhere about…" He came around a corner and found himself stopped in his tracks, "…here."  
  
Time did not stop. Lightning did not strike him. But it might just as well have.  
  
Aziraphale stared, open-mouthed, at the loveliest little cottage he'd ever come across. It was perfect in every way; not objectively, of course, because objective perfection did not exist, but in Aziraphale's eyes it could not have been better if it had been made of French crepes. [15]  
  
"He's playing dirty!" Aziraphale said with perhaps a little more delight that such a statement warranted. "Why, I never."  
  
He picked up his pace. If thwarting this wile required harming that cottage in any way, Crowley would have him soundly beat. The thought was a little disappointing, but also spurred on his fighting spirit. He wouldn't call it quits yet, no sir!  
  
So eager was he to find out more about the cottage, he utterly failed to note the curious looks he was attracting from a number of neighbours.  
  
The gate in the garden wall opened for Aziraphale without resistance, though it had been locked for close to four months. Aziraphale noticed this but didn't think it odd. Rather, he took it as a sign that he was on the right path. This was a game, after all, set up for him. It only made sense that Crowley would keep humans from stumbling upon his project until Aziraphale found it. The gate was likely set to only open for him, Crowley, and people from that cleaning company.  
  
"Impressive attention to detail." It felt good to say it. Giving compliments had always come easy to him, especially giving them to Crowley, but how Crowley would receive such things had never been predictable. A kind word could evoke anything from a smile to aggression.  
  
Well, not true aggression, but the veneer of it. Though that part had only started…  
  
Memories were brutish things, barging in on any and all occasions without regard for their welcome or lack there of. The gate swung shut behind Aziraphale and he found himself standing in a garden he couldn't see. He was so very good with patterns and so very good with denial, so the balance between the two could tip over either way in the blink of an eye. Patterns had the win this time, calling up the slow progress of their friendship, the recollection of each and every time he'd given Crowley a compliment and the reactions they had garnered. Pieces fell into place, creating a distracting outline.  
  
"No time for that now," he admonished, wringing his hands. Cause and effect kept poking at him, reminding him of how there had been long periods of time when Crowley had been perfectly happy to receive compliments, only to suddenly flare up at them during their very next meeting. The push-backs had gotten more over the top since their, ah, _disagreement_ in 1862, but they'd always been there. There was a sort of rhythm to it, to when Crowley would welcome praise and when he'd be angered by it. But pinpointing the exact rhythm and the meaning behind it was tricker than recognising its existance.  
  
"What am I meant to do with this information?" he muttered, trying to sort through the flood of memories assaulting him. He stood there, frozen in place, as the recollections sorted themselves through and settled. He was on the cusp of something, he could feel it, but just as he brushed against it, it retreated.  
  
With a deep sigh, Aziraphale let it go. This wasn't the first time an idea evaded him, and it wouldn't be the last. He just had to have faith that he'd figure it out when he needed to. Or give the idea a gentle nudge along the right path.  
  
"Tomorrow I'll talk to Crowley about it," he promised himself and finally took in the world around him again.  
  
It was an impressive place, no doubt about it. The homey cottage drew his attention foremost, but that would be the grand finale of his exploration. First, he needed to take a detailed look around outside.  
  
The garden close to shone in its beauty. Every plant trembled with fear.  
  
"You poor things," he said, reaching out to pet a rose bush that very carefully didn't sting him. "I can definitely see Crowley's handiwork here."  
  
Not that he'd known about Crowley's interest in plants until he'd visited his current home. The beautiful plants there had been a surprise, as had the framed sketch of the Mona Lisa and the familiar looking eagle statue (Aziraphale still hadn't placed that one). As noted previously, Aziraphale had found it good to see Crowley finally beginning to make a proper home for himself. The few times he'd visited Crowley's different homes they'd always been bleak and barren. Thinking of Crowley spending this free time in such a place had hurt. Maybe he was finally rubbing off on Crowley in that regard, inspiring him to take interest in his own living space? That would be nice, seeing how long he'd been trying to sow a seed of comfort there.  
  
If Aziraphale had been human, he would not have noticed the formerly wild now domesticated strawberries calling for his attention. Luckily he wasn't because they seemed quite desperate to be discovered, loud enough to pull him out of his home decor musings. They all but shoved their berries at him, begging to be picked.  
  
"Oh I couldn't," he said out loud, feeling terribly silly. Not because he was talking to strawberries - he'd talked to far sillier things - but because he was standing here, near the end of a trail, getting distracted every which way by memories and flowers alike. He was being a terrible opponent in this game.  
  
He took a couple of strawberries, just to be polite. This seemed to relax the plants, if only a fraction.  
  
Was this the wile Crowley wished him to thwart? Tortured greenery?  
  
Steps coming up the gravel road leading up to the gate in the garden wall alerted Aziraphale to the fact that he wasn't alone before he could be taken fully by surprise. He straightened up, giving the strawberry plants a courteous "Thank you kindly", and turned to face whoever was approaching.  
  
It was a human woman; friendly smile, sensible haircut, overcoat pulled over indoor clothing as if she'd rushed out of the house in a great hurry.  
  
"Hello hello!" she said across the wall, all cheer.  
  
"Hello!" Aziraphale answered, startled into chipper politeness. Humans tended to be less suspicious of you if you had a good-natured jauntiness about you when you spoke, especially if you were somewhere you weren't supposed to be. Aziraphale had never figured out why this was, but it worked so it had become his default strategy when found in a place he'd not been officially invited.  
  
"Is Anthony selling the house, then?"  
  
That…was not the question Aziraphale had been expecting. "Anthony?"  
  
"Anthony Crowley," the friendly smile got a bit of a strain to it. "His cottage, last time I checked."  
  
That helped the penny drop. "Ah! _Crowley_. Anthony Crowley, whose cottage this here is, yes, yes." It was rare that Crowley used his human name, between the two of them. He should have expected Crowley to have some more human agents about; he wasn't one for half measures. "Eh, no, I shouldn't think so. He's not said anything about it. To me, that is. At all."  
  
The woman's eyes had narrowed into a searching squint, but not quite the kind Aziraphale was used to seeing humans put on when deciding if you were a burglar. [16] Clearly she was part of this challenge of Crowley's. He just needed to figure out in what way.  
  
"Wait a sec!" The smile got back its warmth, though remained hesitant. "You're Anthony's…_friend_."  
  
Aziraphale's heart did that annoyingly wonderful flutter it tended to do in situations such as these. "Talked about me, has he?" He tried not to preen, he really did. He failed terribly, which he blamed on being distracted with figuring out what this conversation had to do with the game he supposedly was playing. Was this woman a distraction or part of a puzzle? Was she hiding a clue? He could really do with a clue because he was quite stumped as to the wile the cottage supposedly presented. Unless it really was the garden he was meant to thwart.  
  
"A bit," the woman said, a gentle frown now creasing her brow. "Everything alright with him? Haven't seen him around since May. Work keeping him busy?"  
  
Aziraphale could have laughed at that exaggeration. Thankfully, every fibre of his being was currently keyed to polite small talk. "Terribly busy! This summer was just dreadful. But that's all over and done with now."  
  
The woman could of course not understand how momentous a statement this was, not having the full picture, yet his words made her smile even friendlier. Maybe Crowley had kept his agents here somewhat in the know?  
  
"That's good to hear," the woman said. "He's always seemed so taken up with work, poor thing."  
  
"He does throw himself into his projects," Aziraphale had to admit. Crowley had taken credit for a number of human-invented evils, but when he had an idea - like the M25 - he worked tirelessly to complete it.  
  
"Known him long, have you?"  
  
A loaded question if there ever was one. "Ages," Aziraphale answered, skirting the truth as easily as breathing. To think he used to feel shame for being such an accomplished liar. "Can hardly remember a time when were weren't, eh, friends."  
  
The woman perked up at the pause he'd made, which put Aziraphale on guard. Had he accidentally conveyed some sort of secret message? Or maybe he was making progress? It was really hard to tell progress when one didn't know one's goal.[17]  
  
"So, what are you doing here at the cottage, all by your lonesome?" the woman said, steering the conversation into what Aziraphale hoped was game territory. "I've never seen you visit before. Didn't know anyone but Anthony and Liza's lot had a key."  
  
Aziraphale produced a key out of his coat pocket. He would have made more of a show of it, maybe pulled it from behind the woman's ear, if he'd had a moment to think. "Crowley wants to change the old gate lock and I happened to be nearby on business," Aziraphale said, desperate to keep a calm facade as he thought up a credible reason. He managed pretty well this time. "He lent me a spare key and asked me to get things sorted with a local locksmith and then give a new key to Miss Liza. He'll probably be along himself in a day or two, once he's got all loose ends tied up in London."  
  
"All right," the woman said, suspicion dropping, but also her smile. "Well, eh, I was just heading over to a friend's house and I should get going. Nice talking to you!"  
  
"You too!" Aziraphale gave her a friendly wave goodbye and did his best to hide his disappointment. Another dead end. Clearly Crowley had overestimated Aziraphale's deduction skills when he set up this game. He'd probably think Aziraphale either a fool or that he hadn't taken the game seriously; neither a very pleasant prospect.  
  
With a huff that could have been either a sigh or a sob, Aziraphale sank down on a nearby bench. It was a very lovely bench, a perfect spot to sit and read in the sun, or to take tea. Since he had no tea available, and no new ideas either, he took a book out of his bag and settled down to read. He kept his homemade bookmark in one hand, tracing his thumb over it in small circles. Sometimes the way to a solution was to take a break; unplanned distractions were one thing, planned ones a whole other beast.  
  
"Should have brought along a book on ciphers instead," he said twenty minutes later. As much as he enjoyed the poetry he'd selected for the trip, he doubt it would help him find a solution and he couldn't manage to distract himself with it either; twice over useless.  
  
Determination had started to fail him. It would be evening soon and Crowley would come looking for him at the bookshop. He'd left a note on his desk, to avoid alarming the demon, but now he was struck with the thought that Crowley might not see the note. What if he went rushing off and got himself injured or worse, thinking Aziraphale had disappeared? Had abandoned him? No, that thought was too dreadful to bear.  
  
For the first time in his existence, Aziraphale wished he'd purchased a mobile telephone.  
  
"Best be done with all this," he said, gently settling his book inside his bag, careful to not get biscuit crumbs between the pages. "I'll have a look inside the cottage, see if there are any clues there, and…"  
  
He paused. He frowned. Why had he hesitated? Why had he sat down here, on this bench, when the cottage clearly was the final goal of the game? Why had he started to give up, here at the very end of his path?  
  
Brightening, Aziraphale turned his gaze upon the innocent looking cottage, scrutinising it. It was hard to tell, with the pure vibrancy that was the garden in full bloom, but now that he went looking for it, it was clear there was protection magic on the cottage. Not the aggressive kind one could expect from demonic protection; walls of flame and howling voices and such nonsense. No, this was a subtler spell, layer upon layer of boredom and humdrum that made the cottage look ever so mundane. It still had a welcoming air from afar, but once you stepped into the garden it began to fade from your attention, bit by bit.  
  
"How very clever, dear boy. How very clever indeed." Aziraphale got up from the bench without hurry, keeping his focus on the cottage door. "It must have taken decades of work, weaving these protections. Well, I'm impressed but not giving up!"  
  
He meant to go inside then, but found himself brought up short by a loud "Yoohooo!" from down the street. Turning around he found a group of humans marching towards him, which was a little unnerving. As they were being led by the woman he'd spoken to but a moment earlier and no pitchforks were in sight, he assumed they wished him no harm. Crowley wouldn't set armed humans after him, would he? But it seemed the first woman had gone to get back-up for some reason.[18]  
  
"Can I help you?" Aziraphale asked them as they stopped outside the gate, straining to remain polite. This was clearly another delaying tactic and he was beginning to suspect Crowley's challenge had some sort of time limit to it.  
  
The woman he'd spoken to earlier gave a laugh a little too high in pitch to sound natural. "Sorry to bother you again," she said, her awkward smile mirrored by the two men and two other women with her. "It's just that, we're having a little get together tomorrow, quite spontaneous." Another nervous laugh. "We just wanted to let you know, in case you happened to be staying over night?"  
  
"Bit late to go rushing off back to London," another woman who seemed a tad older than the first one said. The group quickly echoed her with hums and hahs of agreement. "If Anthony's cottage is too dusty to sleep in, you're welcome to stay the night at our place. We've always got a spare bedroom open for a friend of a friend."  
  
The man next to her, possibly her husband, nodded along with this. "Yes, yes. It'd be no trouble."  
  
"Most kind," Aziraphale answered, unconsciously clutching his bag to his chest as if he were a man caught in a state of undress grasping at his bed linen. "But I shouldn't trouble you. Anthony's cottage will do me just fine. Lovely meeting you all, here, do take my card, ta-ta!" His words kept speeding up and he all but threw his business card at the closest human. Clearly the game's deadline was the last train back to London. He'd better hurry up!  
  
If Aziraphale hadn't been focusing all his attention on the cottage then, he might have heard Mitch Green exclaim "He works in _Soho_!" as if this were some great revelation.  
  
The magic that kept the cottage so hard to focus on seemed to work in his favour now, as none of the humans called after him or tried to open the gate. It only took him seconds to walk from the garden wall to the door, and it opened for him as easily as the gate had done. When the door closed behind him, it blocked out all sound, as if welcoming him into another world.  
  
What first drew Aziraphale's attention was the fine layer of dust on everything in sight. Not a thick layer, not like the heaps of it you could find under any of the shelves back in his shop, but clearly no one had cleaned the place for at least a year. Crowley really should find a better cleaning service for it.  
  
The second thing to call on his attention was a feeling. It hadn't been notable from the garden, likely thanks to Crowley's many layers of protection spells, but inside the hallway it became impossible to miss.  
  
This place was protected. It was safe.  
  
"Oh my." Ever so gently, Aziraphale put his bag down on a small table that fit it so perfectly you'd think it had been put there for that exact purpose. He didn't take his coat off though, too dazed to think that far. Instead he went into the next room.  
  
"Home," Aziraphale whispered as he let his fingers run along a wall, too overwhelmed to truly take in any details. "That's what it feels like. This is a home." But whose? Crowley's? And if so, for how long? Why here? Why now?  
  
He all but stumbled into the next room and had to stifle a gasp. It looked to be a living room, but most of its space was taken up by empty bookshelves. Well, almost empty. There were a handful of books on one of the shelves and Aziraphale knew them instantly.  
  
"I," he said, soft and disbelieving, "I gave him those."  
  
He moved over to touch them, to make sure he wasn't mistaken, but the paintings on the opposite wall brought him up short before he could. There, old but cared for, hung two portraits made by one Leonardo da Vinci several centuries hence. They shared a frame, lining the two pieces up so it was clear they'd been meant to fit together.  
  
"He kept you," Aziraphale said to the art, teetering on the edge between shock and joy. "Why…why didn't he tell me he kept you? And why here?"  
  
Shaking his head, Aziraphale began to pace the room, taking in all details he could. He couldn't make himself stay in one place for long, circling that room twice before moving on to the next. Each room held a surprise; many a familiar objects alongside things new but so unlike Crowley's usual decor they might as well have been burning bushes.  
  
And then there were the feathers.  
  
Each room had at least one handmade decoration that included feathers. In the hallway it was a flower arrangement, the flowers locked in place to be in full bloom pretty much indefinitely. In the room with the bookshelves there were two frames with a circle of feathers inside, and the next room had a whole rain of feathers strung up above its fireplace. In the kitchen, Aziraphale found a mirror surrounded by a proverbial halo of them.  
  
Like all feathers in the other rooms, these were black.  
  
"Surely not."  
  
Aziraphale took a step closer, leaned in until all the mirror reflected were the left half of his face. He didn't know too much about birds, but there were some things that were unmistakable. Between one breath and the next, he knew for sure that these were such unmistakable things.  
  
The feathers were _Crowley's_ feathers.  
  
"I say!" Aziraphale exclaimed, caught between wanting to back away from the mirror and wanting to reach out to caress the feathers. The first instinct won out and he took a step away, finding his reflection strangely flushed.  
  
"I know this feeling," he told his wide-eyed reflection, fumbling to keep himself in one coherent piece. "I know it. I've felt it before. I just…Why can't I name it?" As they'd done for far too many weeks, words escaped him, rushing off into the swirl of his thoughts like mice scattering into walls and in-between floorboards.  
  
Standing there, surrounded by feathers, Aziraphale began to suspect Crowley hadn't meant for him to pick up that phone call at all.  
  
Horror shouldered aside wonder and that unnameable something the feathers stirred. It began to dig at his insides, shame and guilt at being in this place, a private place he hadn't been invited. Or had he been? What in the world did this mean? Was this bad? Good? Irrelevant?  
  
Unforgivable?  
  
Behind him, something heavy hit the floor.  
  
He meant to turn around. He really did. But his courage failed him.  
  
A beat. Then:  
  
"A-angel?!"  
  


* * *

[1]Aziraphale worked hard on maintaining an atmosphere in the shop that discouraged customers from lingering. There were a couple of chairs about the place, for when he himself wanted to sit down and read, but you needed to know how to sit in them or they were terribly uncomfortable. The sofa was the grand exception to this carefully crafted discomfort. Despite the wear and tear it had gathered across the decades it grew cosier by the year. Aziraphale had reasoned - loudly and repeatedly - that it was for his own sake that he kept it. He couldn't always remember how to wrangle the chairs and he might want to try sleeping one of these days, but he couldn't be bothered to get a bed. That a certain demon had gotten into the habit of falling asleep on said sofa clearly had Nothing To Do With Anything, or so Aziraphale had been arguing with himself for close to 200 years.  
  
[2]To an immortal being who's existed since before the dawn of time itself a handful of weeks should be nothing more than a drop in the ocean. However, when said immortal being was trying to fess up to rather monumental and intimate feelings for another immortal being, five weeks could feel like a century.  
  
[3]There had been a moment, well, _a buss ride,_ where he'd dared to, before all thoughts of body-switching. All extraordinary threats to the world had passed, leaving them only with their own fears, fates balancing on a knife's edge. The bookshop had been assumed gone and they'd had no idea when Heaven and Hell would inevitably come for them. So he'd reached out, and Crowley had welcomed a hand in his. Aziraphale had been struggling to get back to that easy intimacy ever since.  
  
[4]Crowley had in fact noticed Aziraphale's anxiousness and had realised what caused it, but had at this point in time, ironically, not figured out a good way to distract the angel from it.  
  
[5]Examples of times Aziraphale had thought of cheating as 'necessary' ranged from making sure to against all odds lose rounds of poker to people who clearly needed money, to mixing up his bag with someone else's that just _happened_ to look the same, because said bag happened to contain a book he thought was headed for a poor home.  
  
[6]Any form of complimentary serviette that followed a meal to Aziraphale's home automatically transformed into a soft piece of cloth on arrival. Aziraphale had no conscious knowledge of this happening and Crowley was far too amused by it to ever point it out.  
  
[7]He had. It had an ever updating ranking system.  
  
[8]One might think this meant he froze to be still as a statue. However, that would be unnatural stillness for a human. Unnatural stillness for a demon, particularly the demon Crowley, instead involved minor fidgeting, subtle shifting of weight from foot to foot, and staring straight ahead at anything but a certain angel.  
  
[9]Ghosts weren't terribly common, but definitely real and very dangerous. Living humans didn't have much magic, with a few notable exceptions. They never possessed anything on the level of an angel or a demon. In 1307 Crowley had argued that this was because magic was tempered by imagination and humans had far too much of the latter for it to be tenable to give them the former. He'd been proved fairly right in this on the day of Armageddon, even if Adam technically only was 50% human (until the day after, when he'd been at least 99% human). Ghosts, unlike living humans, had no limitations on magic and no real idea of what was going on around them. Not the safest of combinations.  
  
[10]Crowley was a bit shell-shocked, but his inner monologue went more along the line of "that was close, that was close, that was close," on repeat and "Idiot! Forgetting your phone with the angel today of all days! Do you want him to find out about-, Ah, don't even think it! He'll see it on your face!"  
  
[11]Previous adventures at flea markets with Crowley had included one smallpox scare (false though dramatic), one all out brawl (over some quite rare paintings whose seller had no idea where they'd come from) and one divorce (that Crowley had insisted had been brewing for years before any intervention from him. Also, his actual goal that time had been gluing trinkets to their display tables; being hit on by an amorous chemistry teacher had not been part of the plan).  
  
[12]Using magic to travel was a risky business and rarely worked as well as you'd hoped. Short distances it was no trouble, as long as you knew where you were going, but the farther you wished to travel the trickier it got. Thus, making yourself appear two floors up or three rooms over in a building took little effort, but if you wished to, say, visit another country you'd better be sure the physical place you aimed for still existed, what with the shifting of tectonic plates, natural disasters, and humans putting up and tearing down buildings over and over. Using magic to go somewhere you'd never been was pretty much impossible. Pretty much impossible and impossible were of course not the same thing, but a ridiculous thing to risk when there were safer and more comfortable options available.  
  
[13]Crowley might have thought Aziraphale's own denial would have helped him hide his gift giving activities, but that only helped for so long. Remember, Aziraphale had very _very_ good hand with patterns. There were only so many times people could lose things he really enjoyed in his vicinity before certain facts of life became undeniable.  
  
[14]Crowley had needed to threaten, blackmail, and bribe seven different shady persons to get the auction house to move their business to the village. Once there, the pride of the house's owner had kept it in business and thriving, attracting people with plenty of money from all across the UK and beyond.  
  
[15]A terrible metaphor, seeing as the structural integrity of crepes was close to zero, no matter their nationality. You'd be out of a home within minutes.  
  
[16]This was because said woman was Andrea Morgan, champion village gossip with an excellent ear for voices. She was currently in the process of placing where she'd last heard Aziraphale's, since she could swear she knew it from _somewhere_.  
  
[17]Then again, he was an angel. He really should be used to acting on faith.  
  
[18]Andrea had indeed done so. Once she'd talked to Aziraphale, she'd marched out of sight of the cottage and sent a mass text that simply read:  
**"Anthony's terribly religious "friend" is at the cottage!!!! Anthony nowhere in sight. HELP!!!!"**  
Present at the scene were Andrea, Old Margret, Mitch, and Jane. They'd also brought along Old Margret's husband George, who was merely religious instead of terribly religious, in the hope that this somehow would ease conversation. Of the people who'd received the mass text, Fatima also happened to be religious, but seeing as she was a different kind of religious than they'd all assumed Anthony's friend was - and also in London for a spa weekend with her girlfriend - she'd not ended up joining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: A confrontation.


	3. Two Not-Birds in One Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale finally confronts Crowley about The Cottage.

Once more overwhelming emotions asked time over for some biscuits and a cuppa, leaving the world frozen and yet still moving forward. If a pin had bothered to drop by it would have gotten a noise complaint, and there certainly wouldn't have been any dancing.  
  
Aziraphale pulled back the hand he hadn't realised he'd been holding out towards the mirror. Distantly, he noted his reflection's cheeks lose colour and grow pallid.  
  
Behind him, Crowley made noises struggling to be words.  
  
_Not that I'm doing much better._ There were a number of things Aziraphale wanted to say, all contradictory. He wanted to whirl around and demand Crowley explain himself. He wanted to pull Crowley close and praise his lovely home. He wanted to take Crowley's hands in his and beg forgiveness for intruding.  
  
He wanted to touch the feathers so very, _very_ much.  
  
Slowly, time and emotions went their separate ways. His hands cradled close as if in preparation for prayer, Aziraphale managed to turn around. He didn't gasp as he came face to face with Crowley, but it were a near thing.  
  
He'd seen Crowley panicked before. It was a distressingly familiar sight this century, though the moments of trepidation and fear had grown less frequent as they put the near end of the world farther and farther behind them. Despite this, the panic on display now was new. For some reason Crowley wasn't wearing his customary dark glasses, [1] leaving his whole face on rare display. His eyes were wide, his mouth hung open, his colour caught between the same rosiness and pallor that had befallen Aziraphale.  
  
Strangest of all, his wings were visible, and they were shaking.  
  
Before Aziraphale could speak, Crowley did: "Y-you weren't supposed to-, it's-, it's not _finished_!"  
  
"What's not finished?" Aziraphale asked, finding himself whispering as reverently as if they'd been in the most ancient of archives. He tried to meet Crowley's gaze, tried to keeping paying attention to his expression, but his eyes kept straying to Crowley's wings. If the decorated mirror was a distraction, Crowley's wings were a beacon, blinding him to all else. He'd not seen them often, no, but they'd never been this overwhelming before. Had they?  
  
Crowley made more noises and waved his arms around, gesturing at everything and nothing.  
  
"The house?" Aziraphale asked, daring a step closer.  
  
"Yes! No! I-, argh!"  
  
A feather suddenly loosened from Crowley's wings, descending to the floor with the softest yet loudest of sounds Aziraphale had ever heard. Another swiftly followed. The sight of them were a most gentle punch to the gut. Something told Aziraphale that he should know what this meant, which was infuriating because he very much didn't. It was on the tip of his tongue, like it must have been for years, if not centuries. It was some form of grand emotion, but it wasn't love; he'd long ago recognised and accepted his love for Crowley. No, this was something both old and new and he had no name for it. He wanted to verbalise it or at least its shape, wanted to put form to his confusion and ask Crowley to alleviate it.  
  
But of course he didn't. What he said was instead: "Are you injured?"  
  
He reached for Crowley and Crowley flinched, backed up against the wall, nearly taking down a clock with his right wing. He didn't answer with words, but the frustrated shaking of his head left no room for miscommunication.  
  
Dread kept boiling, mixing with confusion and the nameless feeling. They formed a queasy cocktail that roiled in the pit of Aziraphale's stomach. Crowley didn't look angry, not exactly, but clearly this situation had gone all kinds of wrong.  
  
"I'm sorry," was all Aziraphale could think to say, torn between a multitude of emotions he'd not been prepared to deal with; not in such a huge flood, all at once, without warning. These were feelings meant for late solitary nights curled up with a glass of wine and a comforting novel. He was left shipwrecked in the sensations of being very silly and very blind and so very, very lost.  
  
Crowley steadied himself against the wall and drew in a deep breath, eyes closed. In the next moment his wings had vanished and his glasses were back.  
  
"Outside," he said. "Let's talk outside."  
  
"Yes," Aziraphale agreed, though the suggestion gave off such wrongness. Like he'd taken a test and failed. Like he'd broken something. "Y-yes, let's go outside."  
  
And they did.  
  


* * *

_Get yourself together, you idiot!_ was the first clear thought to cross Crowley's mind as they exited the cottage. _He knows, yes, but he clearly doesn't **know**, so just deal with it!_  
  
This was easier said than done, of course. He should have known this strange urge of his had been his and his alone. He should have expected Aziraphale to look at the cottage and just see a house. He had prepared himself for it, for this cosmic joke being played on him to one day reach its ultimate punchline. There were millions of demons and angels in the world and yet Crowley had seen no evidence of any building projects similar to his the times he'd visited Hell nor during his recent kidnapping to Heaven. Why should Aziraphale be any different? Why should he have this same strange instinct that Crowley had been saddled with, just because he'd also ended up stationed on Earth since Eden?  
  
Then there was the worse thought that Aziraphale _did_ know but was too polite do say he didn't approve, didn't-  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
Crowley choked back a noise of pain. This was it. This was the rejection he'd been fearing for four millennia. He could make it through. Aziraphale likely wouldn't even know what he was declining and that was _fine_. It would have to be fine. Because he was not losing his angel over something like this! He'd just start over somewhere else, keep it better hidden, and-  
  
"I'm sorry I went behind your back," Aziraphale continued, sounding close to tears. "I didn't meant to! I was," he paused, swallowed audibly, "I was being a silly old thing and thought you'd invented some sort of game for us to play. You've never forgotten your mobile telephone before and when that young lady called talking about a cottage I'd never heard of, I thought you'd made up a bit of a distraction for us. I can't begin to apologise enough."  
  
_Oh angel._ Squaring his shoulders, Crowley slowly turned around and faced Aziraphale. Seeing the wetness at the corner of his eyes hurt even worse than the undertone of them in his voice.  
  
"I'm not angry with you," Crowley was quick to say, managing to achieve something close to his usual devil-may-care posture.[2] "Just didn't expect you here, that's all. Put a bit of effort into keeping it hidden, as you can see." That much would be obvious to anyone with magical talents who'd stepped inside the cottage, and Aziraphale had magical talent to spare and more.[3]  
  
Aziraphale still had a hesitant, almost fearful air about him, but his shoulders lowered a fraction, the shine in his eyes dried up. "Oh I see. You meant it as a surprise. It's a gift?"  
  
"Y-yeah." Not the truth, not the _whole_ truth, but close enough. Crowley could work with this. "Humans have been playing around with weekend cottages for ages. Thought you could do with one. If you want it."  
  
Once more, he had to fight not to stop breathing. Not that he worried about scaring Aziraphale as he would have scared a human, but it would have been a huge tell. Lying to Aziraphale was like chewing glass, and telling half-truths wasn't much better. Being caught in a lie was unthinkable.  
  
Aziraphale frowned. Crowley stubbornly refused to shriek in terror.  
  
After almost a full minute, Aziraphale said: "Right. Well." Crowley couldn't read the myriad of emotions that brewed in the angel's eyes. Was this it? Was he caught out?  
  
Surprisingly, it ended up being Aziraphale who let out a breath as if he'd been holding it. A smile, soft and sweet, settled on his lips, and though it didn't completely reach his eyes, it looked genuine.  
  
"I've done this all wrong, haven't I?" he said. He stepped away from the cottage's door. After the briefest of hesitations, he held out a hand, reaching, inviting. "Would you be so kind as to give me a tour of the village?"  
  
Crowley knew he should say no. He really should. There was no way he could show Aziraphale around these parts and not reveal exactly how entrenched he was here. He should get Aziraphale into the Bentley and postpone the whole conversation until they were safely back in London.  
  
But Aziraphale was offering his hand. There was no saying no to that.  
  
"As you wish, angel," Crowley said, forcing a confident smile. He moved closer, careful to let Aziraphale take the lead in what degree of touching there would be, if there was to be any. He had to refocus all his attention on keeping his wings where they should be[4] when Aziraphale took his hand and gently guided their arms together, linking them at the elbows.  
  
They'd not done this, even when it had been in fashion for friends to walk as so.  
  
"Lead the way," Aziraphale said, still smiling, still careful.  
  
"Where do you want to start?" Cheer came easier now. They were touching! Practically in public! So what if Aziraphale didn't fully understand? All hard work put into this place would get its chance to shine and the angel might return there once or twice in the next decade. That really should be enough. He'd just have to clean out all the feathers later, and everything would be fine and normal again.  
  
"I wouldn't say no to dinner," Aziraphale said, giving Crowley's hand such a loving pat that Crowley nearly swooned (not that he'd ever admit that). "Have you any restaurant recommendations?"  
  
_Far too many._ A thrill running down his spine, Crowley managed a genuine, comfortable smile this time, and said, "I think I know a place or two."  
  
Crowley quickly got them out of the garden and away from the cottage. They'd go get a bite to eat and talk, away from the cottage's distracting presence. He'd think up a way to smooth this over, and all would be well.  
  
Also, he'd been sure he'd seen a glint of light from a window across the road, so he suspected they'd have nosy neighbours descending upon them within minutes if they didn't leave quickly.[5]  
  


* * *

In Aziraphale's long experience, Crowley rarely lied. He lied to humans like clockwork, yes, but he didn't lie to Aziraphale. In fact, to Aziraphale's knowledge he'd lied to Crowley more times than it had been the other way around. Which made this a very rare and concerning occasion indeed.  
  
But it was also a clue. A very helpful one.  
  
"This is just marvellous," Aziraphale said as the serving staff brought in their sushi, doing his best to sneak careful glances at Crowley while pretending to be wholly entranced by their dinner. No real challenge since the meal did look marvellously tasty. "I'm so glad sushi has gotten this popular. One never knows what trends will carry over from nation to nation, but it's always so pleasant when it's something as lovely as this."  
  
Crowley made a noise of agreement and poked at one of his sushi pieces with a chopstick. It wasn't the listless, anxious sort of poking that Aziraphale had gotten sadly used to seeing during the past 11 years, but the absent-minded, entranced kind that sent all kinds of organs inside him aflutter.  
  
"Bon appétit!"  
  
Aziraphale made sure to savour each bite even longer than usual, commenting the taste and texture with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. This continued to be easy as the sushi was excellent, and thus he was able to put all his true attention into studying Crowley's reactions to his comments.  
  
Crowley had suggested restaurants to dine at before, countless times. He'd always been pleased when Aziraphale had praised the food of the place they'd ended up in, but this time something was different, more intense. Crowley had not only been attentive when they'd sat down in this restaurant, he'd carefully picking their table and left to 'have a word with the chef' before the menus had been brought out. He acted for all the world as if he were a start-up restaurant owner awaiting the judgement of a famous food critic.  
  
_What have I stumbled upon, my dear? What did I miss back at the cottage that upset you so?_  
  
Aziraphale silently set up a list of plausible reasons as he kept the praise coming, checking them off one by one as he disproved them.  
  
The first reason he'd thought up, during the panic and dread as Crowley had led him out of the cottage, was that he'd stumbled upon a hiding spot; that this village and cottage was a place Crowley went to be alone, away from all things divine and demonic. That idea was quickly dismissed by Crowley's clear distress at Aziraphale possibly disapproving of the place. Not that he'd said so in so many words, but he'd been projecting it so strongly he'd been all but shouting.  
  
That meant the second possible reason became very plausible: the cottage had truly been meant as a surprise gift and Crowley had been upset to see his surprise spoilt. If this encounter had happened but a hundred years previous, Aziraphale would have let himself stop at that. It had to be at least partially true, judging by the first words Crowley had blurted at him upon discovery. But he was missing something, and it was something delicate and important.  
  
Thus, he arrived upon the third reason, just as he partook of his final piece of sushi. Crowley had acted this way before. Not perhaps this strongly or clearly, but there had been times when he'd been almost this nervous and jittery without an impending Apocalypse to fear. Aziraphale had seen him this invested yet terrified on at least three previous occasions.  
  
This was Crowley worried about scaring Aziraphale off.  
  
_I can't blame you._ Not that Aziraphale blamed himself either. Regret was one thing, but he could never blame himself for wanting to keep Crowley safe. Hindsight telling you of how you could have done things differently, faster, was not the same thing as doing something wrong. He'd had moments of blaming himself,[6] yes, but those moments were far behind him now. Far behind the both of them. And to his surprise, the knowledge that Crowley was panicking was helping him be daring. Not just _feel_ daring, but _be_ it.  
  
He still couldn't believe he'd offered Crowley his hand, and yet here they were, after having walked a good twenty minutes arm-in-arm, sitting so close their knees could brush against each other. It was exhilarating!  
  
"Are you going to eat that?" Aziraphale asked, to try and gauge Crowley's state of mind.  
  
Crowley, who'd been resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, sat bolt upright. "You can have it," came his swift reply, right before he began to push his plate away.  
  
"How kind of you." Aziraphale took the offered food without protest because he suspected any sign of rejection would send Crowley spinning further into panic. As much as said emotion was helping Aziraphale be bold he did not relish it; the whole reason it spurred him to be so unusually forward was, after all, because he wanted to soothe Crowley's distress.  
  
He settled for enjoying the last of the sushi in reverent silence, well aware of the close eye Crowley was keeping on the proceedings.  
  
"Dessert?" was the first word out of Crowley's mouth the second Aziraphale put down his chopsticks.  
  
"That would be lovely."  
  
"I know a good place nearby."  
  
Aziraphale noted, as Crowley went to actually pay their bill in person instead of miracling it away, that Crowley seemed to know this village like the back of his own hand. There was no doubt about it now that they'd walked through it together. Which meant the cottage wasn't any old house Crowley had thought would make a fine gift.  
  
The feathers. They were the key to this, somehow. Aziraphale felt the answer staring him in the face, tantalisingly close but still out of reach.  
  
No good would come from getting hung up on that though. When faced with a mystery, more clues were what you needed. Staring yourself blind at the few you had would only end in frustration.  
  
"All done?" Aziraphale asked, linking arms with Crowley again. Now that he'd dared do it once he saw no reason to deny himself doing it again. Especially not when the thrill it gave so clearly resonated in Crowley. The poor demon all but froze at the first touch, but not in that fight-or-flight way that would have worried Aziraphale. No, this was an anticipatory kind of stillness, the kind you showed when something skittish approached you and you didn't wish to frighten it away.  
  
It should be both amusing and annoying that Crowley was treating him as some form of trembling woodland creature, but it ended up heart-warming instead. It wasn't as if Crowley walked on eggshells around him at all times - it was just in this that the usually so brash demon chose to wait, which showed how well they knew each other.  
  
_"Letting you set the pace,"_ Aziraphale's own voice crowed at him in victory. Though hadn't that always been the case? Crowley showing him or telling him what he'd like the next step for them to be, but never forcing the issue. He'd wait, more or less patiently, for Aziraphale to step through whatever door he'd opened before crossing the threshold himself.  
  
All Aziraphale needed to do now was figure out where this door lead so he could find a way to step through it and onto the path beyond.  
  
To no real surprise, Crowley lead them to _Grace's Baked Goods_. Grace wasn't behind the till when they walked in, but Crowley confidently lead them to a free table and seemed not at all bothered by the lack of humans present, as all the tables were free. Aziraphale hadn't sensed any magic, but Crowley might have sneaked a miracle while he was distracted by the sushi earlier. Did he wish for their meals to be wholly private? Now that was a thought that spurred Aziraphale's heart into a delighted gavotte.  
  
"You've brought me cake from here before, haven't you?" Aziraphale asked, partly to see how Crowley would react and partly to cover for himself in case his compliments ended up somewhere along "this establishment always is so excellent". He had the feeling that he'd disappoint if he revealed he'd already gotten to know Grace and her fantastic baked goods face-to-face.  
  
Crowley made a sound of confirmation, then said: "Staff must be on a smoke break. I'll go find her."  
  
Aziraphale stayed in his seat by the window, torn between the distraction of delight and the need to keep solving the mystery presented here. They needed to go back to the cottage after this, together. Whatever had gone wrong there they couldn't go back to London with it unsolved. He'd just need to convince Crowley of that.  
  
Unbidden, a flush crept into his cheeks at the thought of the cottage and its feathers. He quickly distracted himself with thoughts of dessert.  
  
The café door opened at the same time as Crowley returned from the back of the shop, Grace in step behind him. If Aziraphale had been familiar with movies in general and Westerns in particular, he would have recognised the ensuing moment as a stand-off. As things were, all he realised was how still everyone had gone.  
  
The people entering the café, frozen in the doorway, included the woman who'd spearheaded the garden wall chat but two hours earlier. It looked to be the same group, the ones not yet inside the café visible through its wide and carefully cleaned windows.  
  
All of the people from two hours ago, entering the café where he and Crowley just happened to be. Surely not a pure coincidence.  
  
"Anthony!" the woman at the head of the group cried out with obvious theatrics. "Didn't know you were in town. How have you been?"  
  
Crowley twitched. It wasn't the hostile reaction of him faced with an enemy or the annoyance of coming across an obstacle or distraction. No, this was Crowley caught unaware by something important. "Just here to check on the cottage," he said, or rather mumbled, shifting his weight from foot to foot.  
  
Aziraphale's misunderstanding dawned on him as pleasant and warm as the sun. These weren't Crowley's minions. These were Crowley's _friends_.  
  
"Why hello!" he said, putting all the cheer this realisation had brought with it into his words. "Such a pleasure to run into you all again." He steadfastly ignored the mouthed 'again?!' Crowley directed his way and focused on exuding welcome. "Anthony is giving me the grand tour, so to speak. The cakes here are just divine."  
  
"Oh yes, Grace is ever so talented," the oldest of the women in the group, the one who'd offered him a room for the night, said. As if on cue, Grace blushed and tutted disagreement, only to be gently hushed by all present (even, to Aziraphale pleased surprise, Crowley).  
  
The younger of the two men in the group broke off from the others by a few steps, smiling. "Anthony, do you have a minute? I could do with some advice on, uhm, roses."  
  
Crowley gave the man an unimpressed look. "…roses?"  
  
"Yup." The man stood his ground, chipper in his blatant lie. "Roses."  
  
"I could do with some rose advice too," the woman at the head of the group said. "It'll just take a second. Don't want to, eh, interrupt too much." She wiggled her eyebrows at Crowley in the most ridiculous fashion. Aziraphale had to stifle an undignified giggle. Crowley just stared at her.  
  
"Grace, you've got roses in the back garden, haven't you?" the woman asked with no trace of subtlety. "Would it be okay if we used them for reference, real quick?"  
  
Grace gave a shrug and Crowley took a step back. Dark glasses hiding them or not, Aziraphale knew the exact moment Crowley's eyes sought his. After 6000 years of knowing a person, you learnt a thing or two about their non-verbal cues.  
  
Crowley was gearing up to fight.  
  
Maybe not physically, but he was preparing to either miracle or yell his way out of this situation. He still showed no traces of anger or true fear, but he was asking for a signal. One nod, one single sign of discomfort, and Aziraphale knew Crowley would erase the both of them from the memory of these humans and make sure they never met again.  
  
Quite an extreme and unprecedented reaction, and yet Aziraphale had no doubt of its validity. Crowley liked these people and yet…  
  
Another clue, then.  
  
"I'll be alright here, my dear." Aziraphale forced his shoulders to relax further, made sure to project confidence along with the welcome. "You're such a talented gardener it's only fair you share your knowledge. I'll order for us while I wait."  
  
Crowley hesitated.  
  
_For crying out loud, it's not like he's leaving me with the Heavenly Host._ "Go on. We're all friends here." They were Crowley's, so they would be his as well.  
  
It took Crowley two more false starts before he finally left the room. Whatever the look was that he exchanged with the oldest woman in the group before he left, it passed too swiftly for Aziraphale to read. He wasn't surprised when said older woman came over to his table and took a seat the second Crowley was out the door.  
  
"I'm Margret," she said as the two remaining members of her group awkwardly shuffled over to another table. "How are you enjoying our fair village?"  
  
"Marvellously," Aziraphale answered, honestly. It was an utterly delightful village and getting the guided tour of it from Crowley was a wonderful cherry on top. "Have you lived here long?"  
  
"I moved here fairly young and newly wed. Before you were out of school, I should think."  
  
Aziraphale did not comment on this, because after being around mortals as long as he had one got used to assumptions about one's age. Things could get rather messy if one went around correcting said assumptions.[7] He instead waved Grace over and placed a quick order, then waited for Margret to do the same.  
  
The second Grace left their table, Margret asked: "You came here without telling Anthony, didn't you?"  
  
The question brought Aziraphale up short, but only for a second. If there was one thing you got used to while in the employment of Heaven, it was sudden and emotionally jarring topic changes.  
  
"There was a bit of a misunderstanding between Anthony and myself," Aziraphale chose to answer. "But we're doing our best to clear it up."  
  
"That's good to hear."  
  
Aziraphale didn't frown, but only because he caught himself before he could. He let his gaze sweep across the café's other occupants and the way the woman at the other table so poorly pretended she wasn't hanging on every word said between himself and this Margret. The man with her looked more relaxed but clearly listening as well.  
  
Now, while he'd always prided himself on keeping up with the ever changing social mores of humanity, Aziraphale had long ago had to capitulate to the fact that many unsaid things between humans would forever go over his head. Body language and subtext changed far too rapidly to keep up with, in his humble opinion. Analysing text was one thing, because text was stationary and patient. Conversations, on the other hand, tended to be rapid affairs that through sheer speed could bowl one over and thus keep hidden many clues that would have been far clearer in literature. For one thing, when characters in books gave each other meaningful looks or sarcastic comments, such intent was either clearly marked or possible to puzzle out from consequences later on in the story. In conversation with other people there were no such helpful indicators or time for careful contemplation.  
  
All this said, Aziraphale wasn't blind. Whatever these people thought of him and Crowley there was a clear undercurrent of concern to every word out of Margret's mouth. She also looked genuinely pleased now, likely at what he'd just said.  
  
Aziraphale allowed himself a smile. Wherever this was going, he was sure it would lead him to more vital clues. He only had to hurry up and ask the right questions before Crowley got back from the rose bushes.  
  
"How long have you known Anthony?"  
  
Margret took a thoughtful sip of the tea Grace placed in front of them. "Oh, a little more than five years now, if I don't misremember. George, when did Anthony inherit the cottage from his uncle?"  
  
"Spring 2014, dear," the man at the other table said loud and clear to his teacup.  
  
"Ah, it seems my memory hasn't failed me yet." Another sip of tea. "What kind of misunderstanding is it you and Anthony are wrestling with?"  
  
No beating around the bush then. Aziraphale felt strangely grateful for it. Five years was clearly enough time to learn what a force of nature Crowley could be when he put his back into it. Aziraphale suspected Margret had the same mental countdown going for when Crowley would come rushing back into the room and demand to know what they were talking about.  
  
Still, friend of Crowley's or not, there were certain things one didn't speak of with strangers. Or anyone. "It's a private matter."  
  
The nod of understanding this earned him from Margret was oddly comforting in the same way her straightforwardness was. "I'm not looking to pry. I only want to give you some advice I wish had been given to me when I was, I think, in a situation quite like yours. Also, I want to make up for some ill-fitting advice I gave Anthony."  
  
Aziraphale's gaze drifted over to where George sat, back now stiffer, shoulders a little hunched, bracing himself. Was the man about to bolt? To laugh? The woman with him didn't seem to notice anything amiss, her eyes fixed on Margret.  
  
"I don't know you, but I'd like to think I know Anthony pretty well by now." Margret put her teacup down with a sense of finality. "Mitchell and Andrea won't keep him distracted for much longer, so I'll leave you with this: He's waiting for you."  
  
"Oh," Aziraphale said. For a handful of seconds, words eluded him. Patterns came to his aid; he took in how much darker George's skin was than Margret's, recalled all the ways humans had found to think ill of each other, put that together with Margret's words about almost understanding.  
  
He cleared his throat. "What was the advice you gave, that you wish to make up for?"  
  
The pleased smile Margret had been giving him shifted into an understanding one. "I told Anthony to not cling to false hope. But false hope is quite different from slow progress, as I'm sure my husband would agree."  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Aziraphale saw George's shoulders relax. He couldn't help but return Margret's smile now, though he suspected his came off more nervous than appreciative. "Anthony has always been the faster of us two, when it comes to this," he said, part explanation, part apology. "I'm doing my best to catch up."  
  
Margret gave the back of his hand a soft pat. "Warms my heart to hear it, dearie."  
  
The conversation could have ended there. Aziraphale didn't let it. "How did… Did he _say_ something?"  
  
Margret folded her hands in her lap and leaned back in her chair, allowing her straight-backed posture to ease. "Not as such. It's more what he hasn't been saying."  
  
Aziraphale could picture that all too well. Crowley was excellent at loudly implying, even when he didn't mean to. Picturing him stalking about the cottage and the village, radiating emotions, pushed Aziraphale's own feelings into turmoil. Not panic, no, but a bit of sadness, a bit of tenderness, which confusingly also joined with joy. He found himself blinking back tears.  
  
"It's mostly how he's so clearly been wanting to decorate for two," Margret continued, to which the woman at the other table added in, as if unable to restrain herself any longer: "Yeah, he's been painfully obvious about it! The rest of us were hoping he'd bring you to Fatima's next crafting group so you could convince him to make something that isn't black for once."  
  
_Crowley joining a crafting group? Black decorations?!_ Aziraphale meant to make some comment on this, but did not get the chance.  
  
"What did you do?!"  
  
Everyone in the café froze, Aziraphale included. This made it easy for Crowley to storm over and place himself between Aziraphale and Margret, like a guard dog rushing to defend its master.  
  
To Aziraphale's further surprise, Crowley grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet. They were halfway to the door before Aziraphale found himself enough to pull free, bringing their retreat to a halt as sudden as its beginning.  
  
"Crowley, whatever is the matter?"  
  
It took Crowley a full three seconds to turn around. When he did, his hands flapped about like hysterical birds, hovering first above Aziraphale's shoulders, then his face, only to be shoved deep into the far too small pockets of Crowley's trousers.  
  
"Angel, you're-" One hand pulled free, gestured in the vague direction of Aziraphale's eyes, then dove back into its pocket.  
  
_Oh._ If Aziraphale had been made to put words to the emotion this whole display provoked, nothing but fond exasperation would have fit the bill.  
  
Luckily, he'd never gone anywhere without a handkerchief since the day they'd been invented. He wished he'd thought to hide it in one of his coat sleeves, but then again sleight of hand magic might have upset Crowley even more. "I am fine," he said instead, putting the handkerchief to work. "I just got a little misty-eyed. How did it go with the roses?"  
  
Crowley made a noise far too close to pain for Aziraphale's comfort. "Never mind the bloody roses! We're leaving."  
  
"Anthony-" Margret said, swiftly cut off by Crowley repeating: "We. Are. Leaving."  
  
"We most certainly are not!" The temptation to use a miracle, if only a small one, nudged at him, but Aziraphale managed to ignore it. He had the sneaking suspicion that things would go completely off the rails if he started throwing magic around inside this café. "What has gotten into you, my dear?"  
  
Crowley's mouth moved but formed no sound. He seemed determined to avoid meeting Aziraphale's gaze while at the same time keeping an eye on every corner of the room.  
  
Aziraphale solved this awkward situation by taking Crowley's hands in his. A bit forward, yes, but far less drastic than magic.  
  
"Margret only gave me some sound advice." The clues were doing the work now, falling into place, urging his words on. "I'm very much enjoying my stay here, and I have no wish to leave. Though I think there are things we should discuss before we spend more time in town."  
  
Crowley swayed, a minute movement only discernible to those paying close attention. Aziraphale kept his hold on his hands and gave them a gentle squeeze.  
  
When Crowley spoke, it was to mumble: "…not here."  
  
"I would agree with you on that, yes." They were moving closer to the door, both literally and metaphorically. Turning to glance over his shoulder, Aziraphale said: "Hope to see you all again soon! Grace, so sorry to rush off, I've left you payment on the table." Sneaking one small miracle, fine, yes, but they were so close to the threshold now he couldn't pause. Actually…  
  
Just as they left, he heard the younger man of the company say: "So, eh, did that go well or terribly? I honestly can't tell."  
  


* * *

Crowley expected to have the walk back to the cottage to pull himself together. But no, Aziraphale led him out the café by the hand, turned a corner, and then they were back in the cottage's garden.  
  
_Bloody cheat!_ Not really a fitting thought since they weren't exactly competing about anything, but it kept him from blurting out more than an angry blessing as Aziraphale let go of his hand and turned around to face him.  
  
"You do know I love you, don't you?"  
  
All breath left Crowley's body. He'd meant to start the conversation, meant to convince Aziraphale that they should get back to London to talk about whatever it was he felt they needed to talk through[8], and then hoped to distract the angel with other matters on the journey back. This… he was **not** prepared for this.  
  
That said (or rather, thought) he'd already seen Aziraphale tear up two times in one day, and that was two times far too many. He found words:  
  
"Of course I know that. I'm not an idiot."  
  
Thankfully, Aziraphale smiled. "Not most of the time, no."  
  
"Hah."  
  
"Come sit with me." Aziraphale took the lead again and they ended up on The Bench.[9] Crowley did his best to lounge but his nerves, inconvenient things that they were, wouldn't let him.  
  
"Now," Aziraphale turned as he spoke, taking Crowley's hands in his again. _Both_ hands, like a _cheater_. "This cottage wasn't meant to be a gift to me, was it?"  
  
Crowley sat up the straightest he'd ever sat on a piece of furniture in his existence. "It was! **Is!**" Every room, every piece of furniture, every feather in the cottage had been positioned and formed based on the faint hope that Aziraphale one day would approve of them. That he'd one day consider living there. That was the whole point of making a damned nest!  
  
Crowley couldn't read the quirk his protest brought to Aziraphale's smile. For a brief, feverish moment, he imagined Aziraphale thought the nest built for someone else. Madness, of course, because Aziraphale had proved over and over that he hadn't been cursed with the same strange instincts as Crowley. And yet…  
  
"You meant it for us, both."  
  
Sound escaped. The faint noise of bird song faded, the trembling of the greenery muted into nothing. Crowley couldn't even hear his own breathing.[10]  
  
"But there's clearly more to it than that," Aziraphale continued, his voice the only thing stirring in the bubble of silence around them. "It's more than a building to live in, more than a pleasant village. The wards on the cottage's door alone must have taken decades of work. There's something I'm missing."  
  
This was edging far too close to either Crowley's worst nightmare or a dream come true.[11] He couldn't decide if he wanted Aziraphale to figure things out, because he had no idea how Aziraphale would react if he understood the situation. All the same, when Aziraphale let go of his hands, he couldn't make himself reach up and prevent his glasses from being removed, despite knowing that his traitorous eyes would let all the cats, and likely a number of foxes, bees and bears, out of the bag.  
  
"I've done something to make you uncomfortable, haven't I?" Aziraphale asked, Crowley's glasses gently cradled in his now faintly trembling hands. His smile wobbled, looking to remain in place only with effort.  
  
To this, Crowley's brain helpfully reacted with: _"No! Stop! Abort!"_  
  
The rest of him, unhelpfully, reacted by manifesting his wings.  
  
"Fuck!"  
  
"Oh!"  
  
Sitting there in a proverbial rain of feathers, Crowley scrambled for anything to say that would distract from the way Aziraphale was _looking_ at him.  
  
"It's not you!" Crowley blurted out, like a lying liar who lies. "It's a weird demon thing, is all."  
  
"The cottage didn't feel demonic," Aziraphale murmured in reply, eyes fixed on Crowley's wings in a way that made Crowley flash hot and cold almost as much as the memory of finding Aziraphale in front of the hallway mirror. "Please, I thought we were past keeping secrets from each other."  
  
That weaselled its way through Crowley's brittle defences, leaving them as shattered as the self-esteem of the garden's begonias. With distractions and denial out of the way, bravado was all that was left to him. Also, he couldn't stay outside with his wings visible - the neighbours were all too nosy for that.  
  
"All right! Fine! It's a weird _me_ thing. Get inside and I'll explain!"  
  
The sigh of relief this drew from Aziraphale helped Crowley get to his feet and march towards the cottage. Hopefully he'd think of an explanation by the time they got inside.  
  


* * *

Being back inside the cottage felt close to coming in from a great storm to welcoming warmth and stillness. Well, stillness aside from Crowley's fidgeting.  
  
_So close._ Even Aziraphale didn't know if he meant proximity to the end of the mystery or to Crowley and his strangely distracting wings. They shed feathers as trees shed leaves in autumn, but there were no bald spots or signs of injury. The feathers came down in an unending torrent, coating the hallway floor. This rung a bell that Aziraphale for the life of him couldn't place.  
  
"Like I needed more stuff to clean up," Crowley grumbled under his breath, stalking off towards the room with the mostly empty bookshelves.  
  
Aziraphale followed him, wringing his hands now that Crowley couldn't see him do so. Whatever confession they were approaching, Aziraphale had no worries about what his own reaction would be; nothing here felt wrong - rather the opposite. This place, for whatever purpose Crowley had selected it, exuded warmth and safety, to the point that it had felt like the most natural thing in the world to say "I love you" out loud in the shelter of its garden. No, what made Aziraphale fret was the sensation that he should _know_ what the confession would be.  
  
Feeling foolish for not understanding was one thing, but it was so very, _very_ clear that his lack of understanding was the root of the current tension. If he only could-  
  
"Right," Crowley said, whirling on his heels, showering feathers onto a cosy armchair and a rug that looked ever so soft. "This," he said, arms spread wide, "is my…home."  
  
Not an outright lie, but not he whole truth yet. _What was the word he actually meant to say?_ rushed through Aziraphale's mind along with _"A home! He said he has a **home**!"_ as simultaneously his mouth said: "But what about your flat in London? I thought that was your, eh, home."  
  
Crowley's hands fled to his pockets once more. "A bit. Mostly it's a," his wings shifted, nearly luring Aziraphale's attention away from the way he kept his eyes on the ceiling, "a distraction."  
  
"Distraction?"  
  
"Yeah, like a decoy. So you wouldn't find this or-" The last he bit off with a sharp click of teeth.  
  
"Or?"  
  
Crowley hissed. Aziraphale took that as a cue to move closer. Clearly a poorly read cue because Crowley took a step back, circling around the armchair. He made it look casual, but seeing as 'casual' was Crowley's default setting for everything that meant nothing.  
  
"Crowley, what were you going to say?"  
  
Both elbows on the back of the armchair, Crowley covered his face with his hands, hiding his eyes. "It doesn't matter."  
  
"Doesn't it?"  
  
"…"  
  
Careful to not get too close again, Aziraphale moved so they'd be facing if their eyes had been free to meet. "Crowley, please. I want to understand."  
  
Crowley pushed off the armchair with enough force to move it a foot out of place and threw his hands in the air, clearly in pure exasperation. "It's a fucking nest!"  
  
…well. "A what?"  
  
"A nest," Crowley all but shrieked and began to pace back and forth between the bookshelves and the windows on the opposite wall. "Like birds make. I've been working on this one like a hellish bowerbird since the 1970s!"  
  
Aziraphale made a note to look up what exact kind of bird that was and dared to move one step closer. "Have you," another step, "build other ones?"  
  
"A few." The words came out strangled, making a narrow escape from the prison of Crowley's throat.  
  
"And were they all?" The patterns were cooperating, he only needed on final fact. "Did you, ah, intend them all for-"  
  
"Yes!" Crowley's wings gave a sharp flap, upsetting an already quivering plant in the nearest window into a fit close to apoplexy. "Bless it, angel, **yes**. They were all for you!"  
  
"Oh." This confirmation, heated and shamefaced though it had been given, instantly made the world a much brighter, more colourful place. Aziraphale found himself smiling and both unable and unwilling to stop. Things were falling into place, the stubborn puzzle finally taking an understandable shape with no missing pieces. He had an open door to walk through.  
  
"Yes, _oh_!" Crowley bit out, still trembling with emotion and shedding feathers like a downpour. He kept pacing out of Aziraphale's reach but not too far, threading the shape of an eight in to the plush carpet.  
  
"And you shedding feathers and decorating with them, that's part of the nesting?"  
  
Crowley gave a low groan and a nod that had Aziraphale rushing for his bag in the hallway.  
  
"Aziraphale!" Crowley called out after him. "Aziraphale, come back!"  
  
The bag was thankfully where it had been left, on the hallway table that so obviously had been meant for it and it alone. "I'm not leaving," Aziraphale called back as he grabbed the bag. "I'm only," he said, followed by a soft 'oof' when he crashed right into Crowley as he turned around.  
  
There was a flicker of heat. Not euphemistic heat, but a change in the temperature of the space around them, that vanished the second Crowley jump back. Aziraphale chose to ignore it, though he took it as a good sign.  
  
"Crowley, here, _look_."  
  
"Aziraphale, what are you-?"  
  
Aziraphale gently pulled the bookmark from his bag and held it up. Before anything further could be said, he unravelled the tartan cloth that was its outer casing, revealing what lay hidden inside.  
  
"Is that," Crowley said, barely audible.  
  
"Yes!"  
  
Aziraphale held the white feather up with the triumph of one who'd found a needle in a haystack. The puzzle was finished at last and the picture it painted was a glorious one.  
  
"It always made me so worried that you didn't seem interested in homes," he began to babble, pure joy carrying his words. "I've been ever so unobservant. Though it sounds like you've been working hard to keep me ignorant of your efforts, which I guess I can't fully fault you for. I must admit that the comparison to birds nesting is quite apt now that you've pointed it out to me, though I'm afraid I'm rather too good at not thinking about things that worry me, so I haven't ever built a proper one. B-but I've had the urge to save these, on the occasions that I've moulted."  
  
He fiddled with the feather, taking in Crowley's unblinking eyes and slack mouth. "It felt wrong to have them out in the open for all to see. I did wish to keep them close however. So," he held up the unravelled piece of tartan cloth, "bookmarks!"  
  
Crowley cleared his throat, still looking pole-axed. "You mean the bookshop i-is full of feathers?"  
  
"Yes, but not like this." Aziraphale brushed a hand against the decoration on the hallway table, not yet daring to touch its black feathers. "This is wonderful."  
  
Crowley would forever deny it afterwards, but he definitely let out a squeak at that.  
  
They stood there in the hallway for a long moment, smiling at each other in what Aziraphale suspected was an utterly sappy fashion.[12]  
  
Crowley was the one to break the silence. "So," he said, still hesitant though sounding cautiously optimistic, "now what?"  
  
"Well, it's rather obvious, isn't it?" It wasn't really, but Aziraphale figured at least one of them should pretend confidence here. "My dearest Crowley, would you let me move in here? With you?"  
  
Crowley drew in a breath that was closer to a gasp. His eyes tore themselves from the white feather and came up to meet Aziraphale's, blinking for the first time since they'd entered the cottage . "T-that would be, eh, good."  
  
"Good?"  
  
"Yeah…" Crowley gave an awkward shrug and a self-deprecating smirk, "good."  
  
This was the moment Aziraphale chose to show his own wings.  
  


* * *

Crowley had never before been as overwhelmed as he was in that moment. Aziraphale stood before him with a white feather in hand, had just asked to move in, and he _had his wings out_.  
  
"Still good?"  
  
"Yep!" Crowley said far too quickly, having no idea where to put his hands, his thoughts or his words. _Don't ruin this for yourself, you idiot!_ "I mean, yes, **yes**! Bloody fantastic is what this is!"  
  
The hesitant smile on Aziraphale's bloomed into one full of joy and pleasure. "Excellent! How do we proceed?"  
  
That brought Crowley up short. He'd never imagined they'd get to this point, not even in his wildest fantasies. What _where_ they supposed to do now? Move in, yes, but there had to be more to it, for it to be done properly? Or?  
  
Honesty unfortunately seemed the wisest course of action here. "I don't know. Never done this before."  
  
"Ah, yes, of course." Aziraphale gave a laugh caught between embarrassment and satisfaction. "Then we shall have to figure out the rules together. Rely on our instincts." He titled his head in a pensive gesture, before saying, "Would it be possible for me to touch your wings? I don't know why, precisely, but I've wanted to since I arrived here."  
  
Crowley's already syrupy thoughts ground to a halt. All he could take in were the searing white of the wings before him as Aziraphale's request looped in his short-term memory along with the word 'instincts'.  
  
"Crowley?"  
  
"Only if I can touch yours." Crowley's mouth blurted out and the way Aziraphale flushed with approval made him less upset by this oral mutiny than he probably should have been.  
  
"Seems instinct is working for the both of us, then," he said, if only to fill the anticipatory silence with something.  
  
Aziraphale clapped his hands in pure delight, which was too bloody adorable for words. Stupid, lovely angel.  
  
They ended up, of all places, in the bedroom. They hadn't discussed the room choice really, their feet just took them there once Aziraphale had been shown all the feather decorations the cottage had to offer.[13] Aziraphale was quick to claim the bed to sit on and patted the space next to him like he had when seated on The Bench. Crowley could do nothing but follow.  
  
"So," Aziraphale said, positively wiggling with excitement, "should I start, perhaps? It seems appropriate, you having built all of this for us."  
  
Crowley would have argued, or at least pointed out that he hadn't built the cottage from scratch or anything so grandiose, and that Aziraphale had his bookshop, but before he could voice his protests Aziraphale's hands were on his wings.  
  
Every muscle in Crowley's body took a step back and decided to simply observe for the time being. He didn't collapse or fall limp, but the second Aziraphale touched him he felt relaxed beyond measure, utterly safe and soothed.  
  
"Here, lie down."  
  
Crowley put up no resistance, allowing Aziraphale to guide him until he lay prone on the bed, face buried among far more pillows than he remembered having put there. He felt the light pressure of Aziraphale straddling his legs, followed by soft, gentle brushes of fingers against feathers. Crowley let out a sigh of pure relief.  
  
"Still good?"  
  
What a ridiculous question! "Angel, you have no idea."  
  
"Not yet, no. But I'm hoping you'll help give me one after I'm done with your wings."  
  
That was a pleasant thought. Cracking one eye open to glance over his shoulder, he looked up and took in the sight of Aziraphale's wings in all their glory.[14] Then Aziraphale dug his fingers into feathers in earnest and Crowley lost all the energy to keep his eyes open.  
  
"Let me know if anything I do is unpleasant," Aziraphale said as he massaged Crowley's wings, sending Crowley all but melting into the bed. "Or better yet, tell me when I'm doing something right. I'm merely guessing here."  
  
"Lower, to the right," Crowley said, not because Aziraphale was doing anything wrong but because he could sense a bit of direction would be appreciated. The request was immediately followed and felt exactly as pleasant as the previous ministrations, so Crowley counted it as a win. He made sure to let out a contented moan to underline how well things were going.  
  
A hazy while of silence and pressure and relaxed, warm pleasure, passed.  
  
"How many nests did you built, before this one?"  
  
"I've almost lost count of how many," Crowley answered, no hesitation. _Damn, this is dangerous_. He couldn't find it in himself to resist it though, even a little. The assurance of safety washed through him like waves against a beach, repetitive and calming. He could have gotten up, he knew, if he'd really wanted to. He just didn't want to. At all.  
  
Aziraphale chuckled. "I feel rather foolish, for never having caught on to what the moulting meant. I came to realise I preferred to have a place to call home a long time ago, and I would always moult when you'd been near a dwelling of mine. The connection should have been obvious."  
  
"Nah, don't feel like that. Can't even remember how I figure it out. Not like any other angels or demons are doing this."  
  
"No, I suppose not." His hands kept up their explorations, pulling free loose feathers, straying ever so often to rub at Crowley's back and neck. Crowley lay there, undecided if he wanted it to go on forever or if he wanted Aziraphale to hurry up so he could return the favour. "I suppose this is ours."  
  
"Yeah," Crowley said, new warmth flooding through him, "ours."  
  
Nests weren't the only thing he lost count of after that, time got really tricky to keep track of too. It tended to fly when you have fun and all that. Crowley had never known his wings to be any more sensitive than his arms or his legs, but he'd honestly never tested out the sensitivity of any of his body parts before. It was staggering how good having Aziraphale's weight on his legs, his fingers among his feathers, felt. It had started out calming and pleasant, but while the pleasure remained, the relaxation had flipped over into ever increasing swells of tension.  
  
"Something's happenin'" he managed to mumble as the tension crested for the fifth time and didn't let go of him fully. It wasn't painful, but it was getting harder and harder to remain still.  
  
"I think we're headed for the next step," Aziraphale said, carding his fingers ever so gently through the feather's at the bend of Crowley's left wing.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"You've stopped moulting," Aziraphale said, a little breathless, "and I've started!"  
  
Crowley managed to fully open his eyes again for the first time since they'd begun whatever this was. He was met by a soft hail of white downs framing a smiling and blushing Aziraphale.  
  
"Would you take care of these for me?"  
  
Crowley had them switch places so fast he wrung a startled laugh out of Aziraphale.  
  
"That," Aziraphale gasped as Crowley buried his hands at last in the soft whiteness of the wings before him, "that is ever so lovely. Do continue, please."  
  
"You got it, angel." Crowley willed himself to slow down, to start as gently with Aziraphale's wings as Aziraphale had with his. He traced the edges of the wings, carefully coaxed free loose feathers and gathered them in a pile by Aziraphale's right hip. He watched gleefully as calm turn to deep relaxation turned to mounting tension.  
  
He almost (_almost_) wasn't surprised when the waves of tension and brief relief began to tug at him as well, one beat behind Aziraphale's, in a strange call and response. He did his best to focus on the feathers, forcing his touch to remain light.  
  
"I'm not made of glass," Aziraphale huffed after the muscles along his spine had grown taunt a third time.  
  
"If you say so," Crowley said, grinning like a loon and very much out of breath.  
  
Aziraphale threw him an amused glare, eyelids heavy. "I do say so."  
  
"Then hold on tight, love."  
  
"Did you just call me," Aziraphale begun to say, but cut himself short with a soft cry. Crowley had taken the order to heart and dug both hands in among the feathers, giving a firm pull at loose and secure ones alike.  
  
"Too much?"  
  
"Don't you dare stop!"  
  
"Wouldn't dream of it."  
  
The rest of the exercise was a blur of building tension, soft sighs, sharp cries and gasps from both parties. It wasn't until Aziraphale outright screamed that Crowley came to his senses. He drew his hands away as if burned and almost had time to speak before it hit him too.  
  
Whatever sensation had overtaken Aziraphale flared up and out, crashing against Crowley with force that knocked him back and nearly off the bed. Not that he noticed this as he was too busy trembling and echoing Aziraphale's scream as a torrent of pleasure rushed over him, wrapped around him and shook him like a rag doll.  
  
When Crowley managed to bring the room back into focus, his left wing and arm were hanging off the bed and he had a crick in his neck.  
  
"Oh my," Aziraphale said from the other end of the bed. "Can't say I was prepared for it to be that," a pause and a laugh, "intense."  
  
"You're telling me," Crowley answered when he'd found his voice again. There were feathers everywhere. "Or messy. I came here to tidy up, not the other way around."  
  
This prompted Aziraphale to dissolve into a fit of giggles, which Crowley soon followed him into.  
  
"I'll help you clean up," Aziraphale said once they'd both calmed down and let their wings go back into hiding. "I think." He reached out for Crowley, pulled him close. "I think I should make some form of decoration out of your feathers. And you should make some out of mine."  
  
Crowley nodded, rubbing his cheek against Aziraphale's in the process. "Sounds good." He felt wonderfully tired, as he hadn't allowed himself to be for decades. He'd slept, yes, but sleep and relaxation weren't necessarily the same thing. "Time for bed."  
  
"But we're already in bed."  
  
Crowley rolled his eyes and made sure Aziraphale saw it. "You know what I mean."  
  
"Well, if you insist." Aziraphale scooted back a bit to rest his back against the headboard, and in the next second he was wearing a ridiculously out of fashion nightgown and holding a book. He let Crowley tend to freeing the covers from feathers before getting the two of them properly bedded down. Crowley made no comment on the nightgown or the book, merely nestled close to Aziraphale, head in the angel's lap in a manner that would have been terribly uncomfortable had he been human.[15]  
  
Aziraphale broke the comfortable silence just as Crowley was drifting off to sleep. "I'm keeping the bookshop."  
  
"Of course you are."  
  
"Also, we should bring the neighbours gifts when we get back from London."  
  
"Whut?" Crowley forced away sleep a while longer, seeing as this was turning into an actual conversation.  
  
"It's what humans do when they move into a new house," Aziraphale said matter of fact, eyes on his book. "It's only polite."  
  
"If you say so." He'd have no trouble finding a suitably passive aggressive gift for the Jonsons in number 3.[16] Old Margret should get something too, now that her interference had turned out all right in the end. Felt only proper, even if there had been no actual demonic deal struck between them. Even Mitch, the meddlesome prick, deserved something for facilitating this. "It's got nothing to do with you wanting to keep track of the neighbours, right?"  
  
"Don't be crass," Aziraphale said in that tone of voice that told Crowley he'd been completely correct. "But you do know that the man in the house opposite yours has a pair of binoculars he seems more than happy to use, don't you?"  
  
"Ours," Crowley said, wrapping an arm around one of Aziraphale's legs.  
  
"Beg pardon?"  
  
"Our house, angel." _Stars_ did it feel good to say that.  
  
The hand Aziraphale wasn't holding his book with found its way into Crowley's hair. "Yes, how silly of me," he said, sounding every bit as pleased as Crowley, "_our_ house".  
  
Crowley decided he didn't need sleep after all. "Read to me?"  
  
"But of course."  
  
Neither felt the need to move until dawn.[17] Once the sun returned from its nightly rest they would have a million and one things to see to. But for now, they would rest and simply enjoy each other's company. After all, what else was a nest for?  
  


* * *

[1]Crowley never wore glasses inside a proper nest. It felt wrong, somehow. He was now deeply regretting this habit.  
  
[2]It ended up more devil-will-care-very-much, but what can you do?  
  
[3]Actual magical talent, that was. Aziraphale's absolute lack of talent for sleight of hand magic made it an utter mystery to Crowley why he kept up practising and enjoying the ridiculous hobby. Then again, Crowley had always hated doing things he wasn't good at, unless there was an end goal that required he step out of his comfort zone. The cottage's village was a good example of this, because shaping it had required Crowley to not only step out of his comfort zone on occasion but more than once leap out of it and through hoops of fire.  
  
[4]Out of sight, that was. Angels and demons' wings never truly vanished, but since they'd begun drawing more questions than awe from the human population, all creatures of angelic stock had gotten into the habit of hiding their wings from view, even from each other. While out of sight, the wings also remained out of physical space, meaning you conveniently avoided getting them trapped in subway doors and ceiling fans - oh, and so you didn't have to reveal that you were all but weeping feathers.  
  
[5]Mitch had since years back been equipped with a pair of binoculars and no shame. Immediately after putting down said binoculars, he gave Andrea a ring, resulting in the following conversation:  
"Andrea, you won't _believe_ what just happened at Anthony's!"  
"Oooh, Old Margret will have your head for spying. Tell me everything!"  
"Right, so, Anthony showed up-"  
"He **what**-?!"  
"Shush, I'm talking. Now, Anthony showed up in his car, calm as you please, goes inside and then minutes later he storms out with his 'friend' trailing behind him. Looks like Mr Fell is a liar~."  
"Oh my god, Anthony didn't know he was here?"  
"Apparently not! But before you panic, I think this might actually be a good thing. Anthony looked a bit upset at first, but that Fell bloke wasn't doing much better. Before I knew it, they had this awkward kind of flirt-y body language going and they ended up leaving for town, arm in arm!"  
"…Mitchell Green, are you telling me Anthony and his friend are out and about here in the village, possible on a _date_ date?"  
"I am! Should I call Jane?"  
"Are you kidding? We're calling _everybody_!"  
  
[6]And by moments, Aziraphale meant the 1950s.  
  
[7]Aziraphale learnt this lesson approximately 5003 years ago, when the group of humans he was visiting at the time insisted on seating arrangements according to age. There had been no angry mob, but dinner had been utterly ruined as every human present had prostrated themselves before Aziraphale in worship. He was sure to never make the mistake of showing his wings to win an argument ever again.  
  
[8]Crowley of course knew what the elephant in the room was; he'd named it and been feeding it peanuts for the past three millennia. This did not mean he'd ever intended to bring it up in conversation.  
  
[9]The Bench had earned its capitalisation because it had taken Crowley a good seven years to find the perfect spot for it in the garden. Sunlight needed to reach it enough to allow reading but not too much to be blinding. It needed shelter from rain without being hidden away. It…well, you can imagine the long list of requirements Crowley had regarding the optimal garden seating for a certain angelical bookworm of his acquaintance.  
  
[10]This was because his lungs had decided to sit this one out.  
  
[11]For a creature who had no need of sleep to learn the art of it took both time, effort and imagination. It also took a lot of mimicry. This meant that you couldn't gain the benefits of sleep if you weren't prepared to also take on the consequences, in this case dreaming. Crowley wasn't prone to nightmares or he wouldn't have become as fond of sleep as he was, but on the rare occasions he'd experienced them he'd tried is hardest to stop himself from dreaming ever again. This was about as easy as saying "Don't think about polar bears" while standing on the North Pole.  
  
[12]He suspected correctly.  
  
[13]When they passed the hallway mirror, Crowley had once more nearly done winged violence to a wall clock when Aziraphale innocently suggested they should get a matching mirror with his own feathers for decoration.  
  
[14]Angel wings are indeed glorious to behold, but people taking in said glory rarely wore the smitten grin Crowley sported in that moment.  
  
[15]Crowley preferred to keep the general shape and size he'd settled for back in Eden, but he wasn't above moving bones and internal organs about a bit if it meant he could sit or lie down as it pleased him.  
  
[16]The Jonsons ended up with a terribly expensive and utterly garish sundial they had long fights over for the rest of the year. Seeing as Mr Jonson always took the chance to sow seeds of strife between any couple he came across and Mrs Jonson on several occasions had demanded Crowley let her horrible offspring play in his garden, Crowley was immensely pleased by this.  
  
[17]This both thrilled and infuriated Mitch, Andrea and Jane, who'd refused Old Margret's sage advice of leaving their neighbours the hell alone to sort things out in peace. While Old Margret and George spent a pleasant evening watching _Midsomer Murders_ and basking in a job well done, the aforementioned trio spent theirs in Mitch's kitchen, drinking and gossipping and keeping their eye on a certain Bentley, in case one or more people should come rushing out of the cottage opposite Mitch's. They all woke up the next morning to a surprising lack of hangovers and an even more surprising knock on the door. Few things discourage people from future use of binoculars as an overly cheerful angel who've come to deliver you breakfast with a side-helping of sub-textual guilt-tripping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to all my readers for your lovely, wonderful comments! So sorry that this chapter took twice as long to write as the previous one; my day job got hellishly busy all through October and hasn't calmed down until now. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this final chapter and look forward to any and all further comments that might appear - they really make my day, each and every one <3


End file.
